


Hold On Forever

by Raeliyah



Series: Song of the Lightbringer [2]
Category: Exalted
Genre: Caleb is a good bro, Not Beta Read, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sidereals doing things properly, Solars deal with the bad stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-08-30 02:05:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 37,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8514475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raeliyah/pseuds/Raeliyah
Summary: Sequel to "Sun in the Labyrinth"It's been a nearly a year since Pyrrhus was dragged down into the Labyrinth in the Underworld. And while the physical wounds might have healed, the mental ones are still raw and bleeding. The Fates, however, know just the huckleberry to show him how to start healing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Exploring the after-effects of Pyrrhus' trauma, and how he works through it, starts to heal. Disclaimer; as an author, I have no personal experience with PTSD but I know many out there do. If I've got something wrong, let me know. I want this to be realistic (you know, within the context of Exalted...). Don't know how long this'll go or where it's going to, but I'll write until it feels finished. Title comes from one of the songs on my character playlist.

_Pyrrhus_

Pyrrhus waited outside Gem, sitting tailor-style on a rock where Caiden had left him. The Chosen of Journeys assured him someone would be along shortly, and he’d know who it was he was supposed to go with when they arrived. Sidereals.

The south was merely hot, and very dry, this deep into Descending Air, so it wasn’t the burning furnace this direction usually was. Even so, he was glad he’d only worn the lightest of his linen wrapped tunics.

It was edging towards sunset when a mounted man rode up, peering out from under the ubiquitous southern brimmed hat at him. Another horse, a slim grey with a dish face and proudly arched neck, trailed behind on a lead. The man swung down easily and Pyrrhus caught the flash of orichalcum from a sling on his back.

“Reckon you’re the fellow I’m meant to round up,” the man said. “Can’t think of any other reason a body with sense would be sittin’ out here in the sun.”

“I imagine so.” Pyrrhus slid down off the rock, surreptitiously stretching the cramps out of his legs by picking up his packs. Mistress’ attentions still hadn’t faded completely, despite nearly a year passing, and his bones ached. “Are you late, or am I early?”

“Star-blessed leave you here?”

Pyrrhus nodded.

“Then I’m late. Apologies; took longer’n’I thought to get out this way.” The man smiled, warmly and genuinely, around a piece of hay he was chewing on. He stuck out a hand. “Name’s Caleb, Caleb Raith, of the Dawn.”

“V’neef Pyrrhus, Zenith.” Pyrrhus exchanged grips with the other Solar, regarding him steadily. Caleb was maybe a hair shorter than he was, with a slightly slimmer build but with no lack of muscle for it. He didn’t look like the usual Southern dusky stock; his paler complexion was only burned tan and his wavy dark brown hair had sun bleached streaks in it, what Pyrrhus could see beneath the hat. Caleb’s eyes were honey brown and bright, with plenty of laugh lines crinkling the corners. His grip was firmly confident and he held it just long enough to take Pyr’s measure in turn, then let go with a nod and a swish of the heavy canvas longcoat he wore.

“Y’ know how to ride?” Caleb asked, untying the grey and offering the reins to him.

“Yes, though it’s been awhile.” Pyrrhus accepted them and went over to the grey to make friends, petting the horse’s suede nose.

“This is Rain. He’ll do you right. Got a lotta fire when y’can light it, but he’s as lazy as a temple cat.” Caleb swung up on his own mount, a buckskin of a heavier build, holding his reins loosely in one hand. “Mine’s Dirt. He’ll steal your hat, if ya let him.”

“Hello, Rain,” Pyrrhus murmured. The grey gelding whuffed into his chest and nudged him, hard, and Pyr staggered a step back with a smile. The packs he secured to the back of Rain’s saddle then mounted up. “Ready--?”

“Aye. This way. Gotta ways to go tonight before we can camp.” Dirt and Caleb wheeled around to the east, heading deeper into the sandy wastes. Pyrrhus felt the glitter of essence on his senses like a dusting of snow against his skin, and power like faerie lights danced along the hooves of their mounts and the lines of Caleb’s reins. “You been t’the south before?”

“Yes. Not for long, in either visit however.” Pyrrhus brought Rain up alongside Dirt. “Caiden didn’t tell me about the reason for me being here. Will you enlighten me?”

“Aw, y’know the star-blessed. Never givin’ ya a straight answer when they can talk you in circles instead.” Caleb shrugged. “They wanted you here, tol’ me to come get ya, an’ tol’ me the place t’go after, so I’m here. Figger we’ll get more as we go. Was there something you needed doin’ elsewhere?”

Pyrrhus thought of the Meridian Isle, green and verdant and free of the threat of yet another Deathlord. Of the city on Meru, thriving under Akaris’ leadership. Angelline and his family safe with Queen Zaela. “Nothing more than any man must do, when he has a family to protect.”

“Ah. Damn, you manage… this? And a family?” Caleb gestured vaguely at his forehead and then out at the horizon beyond where the Sun was making its way towards the Pole of Water. “I ain’t doin’ too badly just with me’n’Dirt.”

“Angelline is exceptionally patient,” Pyrrhus shrugged. “But I think even she tires of me around continually. This is not bad timing, so long as it isn’t too long.”

“Doubt it,” Caleb said. He spat out the wisp of hay to one side and fished in a pocket for a moment. “Once them Sids get involved, things tend to explode. Give it a day or two for the fuse to light an’ I bet somethin’ll pop up fer us to deal with proper wise.” He stuck a cigarette between his lips, and leaving the reins looped on the saddle pommel while Dirt paced along, lit it with a flicker of Solar essence. “You’ll be home before the month’s out. I’d bet you a dinar, but I don’t hold with gamblin’.”

“Neither do I,” Pyrrhus said, a little bit of a grin growing to match Caleb’s.

Caleb led them down into the dunelands and along a dry riverbed, explaining his knowledge of the territory as they went, and the various little gods that stewarded it, the elementals that called it home. He’d been living rough more or less his entire life in this area of the South (more northerly than Gem, he admitted, but not so much).

“How long since your Second Breath?” Pyrrhus asked as the horses scrambled up a rocky slope and into an area of wind-sculpted rock walls and pocket canyons. The sun had nearly touched the horizon now, and Pyrrhus hoped they’d stop soon.

“Oh…” Caleb scratched under the band of his hat idly. “Musta been ‘bout… five or six years now? What about you?”

“Almost fifteen years.” Pyrrhus did some swift mental calculation; Caleb had exalted just after the Jade Prison had broken, spilling its cache of Solar Exaltation shards at the bottom of the Inland Sea. Pyrrhus well remembered the hekatonkheire forcing him down to his knees as he fought with blades to defend the prison from the underworld’s monster. Not that he had wanted the prison to remain intact, but he didn’t want the deathlords to get their hands on it either. His defense had been in vain, as half the shards had been captured anyways.

“Sheeeit, you been doin’ this that long? You don’t look any older n'me.” Caleb did look young; maybe just at his third decade.

“I’m told that those Chosen by Ignis Divine can live several millennia - and they don’t age until the last hundred years or so.”

“Damn.” That seemed to rob Caleb of his words for awhile, as he navigated the twists and turns of the canyons.

They turned into one passageway that sloped upwards and dead-ended into a bubble-like grotto. Green, the first green Pyrrhus had seen since stepping through the gateway in Yu-shan, greeted them. Thick grass and ferns and succulents grew in profusion around a small spring-fed pool, climbing plants draped over it like a veil.

Caleb thunked to the ground and led Dirt over to the pool to drink; Pyrrhus cautiously followed suit. “This place b’longs to a friend o’mine, Rivela. It’s one of her springs. We’ll be safe for the night here, at least from things what aren’t natural.”

“And things that are?”

“I sleep light an’ carry two pistols,” Caleb grinned. Dirt drank his fill and Caleb led him off to one side, untacking the buckskin stallion and setting out his gear. The horse set to cropping the thick grass and shortly Pyrrhus had Rain turned out beside him, similarly divested of tack. The southern style saddle was unfamiliar, and it took him a moment of study to figure out the arrangement of straps and buckles.

“Yer from the Isle, aren’tcha? I hear it’s all civilized, inns every mile an’ food just growin’ wild. Ever camp rough out before?”

“Clearly not as you’re accustomed to doing.” Pyrrhus watched as Caleb unpacked several pieces of bent metal and set to assembling them. He set it on a large flat rock, added some smaller ones for bracing, and then with another flicker of essence lit the wick of its fuel reservoir.

“It ain’t so hard, or I’d been dead long since. Lemme set this t’cooking an’ I’ll show you how to set up camp proper.” The metal pieces had been packed into a small pot; he filled it with water from the spring and added the contents of a packet from his saddlebags to it.

While it simmered and cooked down into something resembling a meal, Caleb walked Pyrrhus through the process of arranging their bedrolls against the walls of the grotto that had absorbed the day’s heat, which would help keep them warm through the cool Southern nights. He shook his head over Pyr’s lack of any sort of coat (“I know it don’t make any sort of sense, but ya do need somethin’ for the nights an’ early in the mornin’, afore the sun gets properly warm.”) and came out of his packs with a length of thick woven, garishly patterned red fabric.

“This’ll do ya until we get to the next town.”

“Thank you.” Pyrrhus pulled the sarape over his head and arranged the folds over his shoulders. It was true, as soon as the Sun had vanished beneath the walls of the grotto the air had gotten noticeably cooler and he was going to be glad of the thick wool before long. They hobbled the horses and settled down to wait for the food. Pyrrhus had been happy to let Caleb fill the silences this far with his cheerful prattle, asking the occasional leading question when the flow ebbed. Now, though, as Caleb took a last drag of his cigarette and rubbed out the stump into the dirt, the silence rose.

It wasn’t a bad silence, maybe a bit awkward, but the quiet sounds of the desert crept out and eased it into something more companionable. The horses browsed, insects in the cracks of the walls began to sing, and the tiny flame of the camp stove hissed and popped.

“What was it like? When ya…” Caleb finally asked, tapping his forehead significantly. “What’dya do?”

“I and my friends - my Circle - stood alone against a demon of the second circle and his army while we were yet mortals. We were certain we were going to die, but we had to give those we protected a chance to escape.” He remembered the sea of hungry darkbrood, hulking and waiting in the shadows of their master - Octavian, the Living Tower - and the looks traded between the five of them.

Renault, Gaelen, Akaris, Jamie, still burning from her own second breath of Hesiesh. He remembered that feeling of inevitability, of taking a stand with the thoughts, “This is where I end. Is it worth it?” echoing through his head. That feeling never lost its sense of weight, of importance, though he’d walked with it a dozen times or more since.

He remembered how time stood still and brilliant light poured through him, how Sol Invictus stood before him and touched the spot where his caste mark now burns, spoke the words that still drive him. How power filled him to overflowing, coalescing into his Soul Forged armor just above his skin, flickered weapons into his hands with which to defeat the creature.

“And then the world went blinding gold. And we won.” Pyrrhus glanced over the deepening indigo shadows at the other man. “Yours?”

“Was a man takin’ what didn’t belong to him. Land, livestock, women - didn’t matter. Nobody wanted to cross him as he was richer than the Empress an’ crueler than Malfeas. An’ he had the blood of the dragons. He came for the town I grew up in, the last little bit o’ my family left. An’ I wasn’t there.”  Caleb shifted on the rock he’d taken for a seat, leaning over to check the food. “Soon as I got word, though, me an’ my boys came for ‘im. Most of ‘em, weren’t because we had any noble ideas o’ being heros. It was fer the jade an’ the silver, an’ the notoriety. If we could take down Mezir! That’d be something.”

“Did you?”

“I did. The boys didn’t make it. We went home, an’... an’ I saw first hand what he was doin’ to the people he ‘owned’... I mighta gone a little mad. I don’t remember much. Sunlight an’ fire an’ thunder roarin’ in my ears, both pistols in my hands.” Caleb yanked the pot off the camp stove, snuffed the tiny flame, and poured the thick soup into their mess kits. He passed one to Pyrrhus and the two of them sat quietly with their memories for a moment.

“Anyhow!” Caleb finally said with slightly forced cheerfulness. “I’m still here, an’ he’s not, an’ that’s what matters. No more Mezir’s in my desert.” He set to his food.

“True. We’re still here.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Caleb_

 

Caleb woke at dawn, or nearly, stretching the kinks out of his joints while still under the warmth of his blanket. That other Solar, Pyrrhus, was already up and awake, which was a bit of a shock. Not many people loved the dawn as much as Caleb did, and few beat him to wakefulness.

But the man was standing in the middle of the grotto, where he had the most room, and was methodically going through a series of poses, each one moving slowly and seamlessly into the next. Caleb sat up, knuckling the sleep from his eyes, and retrieved his boots from the bottom of his bedroll. He checked them carefully for creepy crawlies before tugging them on.

“Good morning, Caleb,” said the Zenith, still moving through the poses.

“Hey, g’mornin’. Whatcha doin’?”

“Katas. Movement meditation.” Pyrrhus sank into a lunge, his hands held up edge on, and hissed as it stretched the long muscles of thigh and calf. The motion turned him, showing Caleb the webwork of scars that covered his back, from the neck all the way down to disappearing beneath the band of his trousers. They were thick and raised, and the only place they didn’t touch was around the band of orichalcum tattoos that looped from one shoulder to the other, front and back.

Them tattoos were interesting. Caleb had spent a number of seasons working with a Moon Chosen who bore moonsilver tattoos in whorls and lines across his body. Pyrrhus’ looked like to be done by the same hand, but he’d never seen tattoos in orichalcum before. Nor in legible script. He knew it was Old Realm, the speech of magic and power, but he couldn’t read a lick of it.

Caleb wandered down the passageway out of the grotto a bit to relieve himself. When he returned, the man had a pair of glowing essence-made short swords in his hands and the _katas_ he was using were a damn sight faster than they’d been before. Caleb whistled in appreciation.

“Not quick enough,” Pyrrhus commented as he finished. He stood quietly in the sun for a long moment, light glinting off his short white-blonde hair, and the swords faded from his hands.

“Looked pretty damn fast t’me,” Caleb said, walking around the edge of the grotto briskly. It was chilly enough still that he needed to keep moving to stay warm, but not so cold that he wanted to throw on the heavy duster. He dipped his bandana in the spring and scrubbed his face by way of ablutions.

“Hmm.” Pyrrhus shook his head, picked up his tunics and Caleb’s serape, getting dressed.

They ate together and packed up the camp. Caleb retrieved Dirt and Rain, tethering them for a quick but thorough grooming. Pyrrhus was no stranger around horses at least, no matter what he said - he knew the tricks to get Rain to pick up his hooves to be cleaned and the way to get the gelding to let out his breath so the girth could be buckled tight.  Once everything was set, Caleb pulled out a map and laid it flat on a rock.

“Alright, here. Sid said bring ya here; speck of a town named…” he frowned at the map. “Curesprings. Right. I ain’t been there before myself, but got some friends who have. Coupla’ places to stop afore we get there though. An here --” he pointed to a spot outside the next town, labeled Crosscreek, “There’s a place long the way where outlaws an’ the like tend to be, on account o’ it’s on the trade road to Gem an’ other rich places out here. We might be in for a bit of a fight, ya up for it?”

Pyrrhus had a devil of a poker face. Caleb’d give a bottle of good whisky to see the man down in Plentimon’s casinos. Pyrrhus’ face closeup, stone-walled, and his blue gaze pins Caleb to the ground almost as well as Lysa’s. “I will be, should it come to it.”

“Aye, good. C’mon then.”

Caleb nicked the base of his thumb, just above the wrist, with his knife and left a little smear of blood by the pool as offering and thanks. They mounted up and Caleb led them out of Rivela’s Gorge, north to Crosscreek and then Curesprings.

 

* * *

 

The place where the bandits usually showed up was five or ten miles or so outside of Crosscreek - far enough out that running for help wouldn’t get nobody there in time. A narrow track through the canyon opened up for some ways, cracks running in all directions, before narrowing again further on.

Caleb stopped Dirt just before that opening, holding up a hand to stall his companion. He cocked his head and Listened hard, wisps of essence sparking at his ears and the corners of his eyes. The stamp of more hooves than theirs, the rustle of leather and cloth, snatches of whispered conversation and the ring of drawn steel. “Right, they’re here. Let’s get it o’er with.”

“Let me,” Pyrrhus said, kneeing his mount forward. The gelding trotted right past Dirt (who, happy to ignore the other horse for the three days since Caleb had liberated it, now laid his ears back and bared his teeth - Caleb kept a tight hand on the reins) and through the open space.

“Shit,” Caleb muttered. “Man’s got a death wish.” He yanked out Medicine Man from the long holster on his saddle, checked it was loaded, and set the stock to his shoulder. He could control Dirt by leg and weight alone if it came to it, and run for it too.

Highwaymen as like these men weren’t interested in anything but what would bring them profit; their fortunes and their cohesiveness rose and fell together. Outwardly, Pyrrhus didn’t look like too tempting of a target of himself. He wore no jewelry aside from a plain torc around his neck, no fancy threads, just a monk’s linen tunics and a wide-brimmed woven straw hat as shade - but the full packs and very expensive horse might be enough.

Pyrrhus stopped in the middle and dropped Rain’s traces, folded his arms over his chest, waiting - with his hat tilted down. Caleb could well imagine what them boys was thinking - is this fella trying to get dead? Is it a trick? Ought we get him anyways?

After a few long tense moments, the gang streamed out of the clefts in the rock, their horses jostling each other at speed as they surrounded Pyrrhus with whoops and hollers. Rain tossed his head and tried to dance out of the shrinking circle of larger horses and yelling men, but Pyrrhus proved his mettle as a horseman and kept the gray from bolting with a hand and weight.

“Y’must be dumber than a box o’ hair, boy,” yelled one of the men. “Aintchu ever been held up afore?”

“By larger and more dangerous creatures than you,” Pyrrhus replied calmly, tipping his hat back slightly. “And I’ll think you’ll find no more profit in it, after me. **You’ll want to find another line of honest work.** ”

“An’ why would we do that?” yelled another, whose horse took exception to the close quarters and crow-hopped, earning a squeal from the one beside it.

“ **Because I am the Zenith.** Your weapons and armor I will leave broken and rusting in the sand; your senseless bodies I will give over to your victims.”

Incensed, the first speaker spurred his horse forward, swinging his heavy scimitar down in a slashing stroke at Pyrrhus. The other Solar threw back his hat and stood in the stirrups, catching the blade on an outstretched forearm - an arm suddenly coated in a thick shell of golden essence shaped like fine scale-maille armor.

“Well, at least they’re all lookin’ at you an’ not me.” Caleb sighted, fired, worked the lever and reloaded. Dirt laid his ears back at the clamor, but he was used to Caleb shooting from his back and otherwise didn’t twitch. The first white-hot metal slug slammed into the ornery horse’s rider’s arm, burning a hole through leather and flesh alike. He screamed and toppled sideways off his mount.

“Let’s break up that meat grinder, eh Dirt?”

Caleb had chosen his horse for brawn and staying power more than anything else, but it helped that Dirt was a damn sight bigger than most Southern horses (of the light-boned and swift varieties, like the grey Pyrrhus was riding). So when Caleb dropped Medicine Man back into its long sling and spurred Dirt forward, it was as if a small boulder had suddenly taken it into its head to fly.

Dirt dug in and _charged_ , and the smart ones saw him coming and got out of the way. The not so smart ones, well, they got two tons of angry stallion bucking and kicking into their midst. The smaller horses of the highwaymen scattered like biddies.  

“Didja think they’d just give up?” Caleb huffed, wheeling Dirt around nose-to-tail with Rain.

“I admit, it requires a measure of self-awareness to do so,” Pyrrhus said. He threw a leg over his mount and slid down to the ground, pointing Rain away from the upcoming fight and slapping the gelding’s rump.


	3. Chapter 3

_Pyrrhus_

 

Pyrrhus is off-balance, dancing around the fact that he knows - _knows_ \- he is not at his best. It’s nothing he could name, nothing he could point to and say _that_ is where the rhythm fails, this is the rock in his boot, over here the place his armor is weak. He at least knows mounted is not his best option, and so he slides down, taking deep breaths, readying for the fight. His first real fight - not a spar, not a training session, not a directing of battles from above - since Mistress. Since the mountain.

The outlaws were still on horseback, so they had to come back to him, leaning far out in order to strike at him with sword and spear. A few of them had bows, but their shots missed and the thunder of Caleb’s peculiar flamewand silenced them thereafter.

These opponents - these people - were as skilled as kittens compared to previous enemies of Pyrrhus’. They were hard men, of course, and certainly dangerous to the mortal peoples of the South - but they might have been brand new initiates compared to Pyrrhus’ practiced martial skill. None of them carried essence of any kind.

It was easy to dance around between and under the glittering steel and thudding hooves, even off-track as he feels. He caught an arm here, a leg there, a belt, pulling his foes from their saddles until their horses stood confused and directionless. Their masters struggled to their feet around him.  

Pyrrhus was from a place where showing his true nature was a death sentence, so he had never developed the instinct to flare his anima as he’d seen other, less endangered Solars, do. But the ability is there, and he knows the way to flex his essence just… right...

The flash is gratifyingly startling. The horses bolted, bunching together in a tight herd and heading back into the gorges. Their riders could either fight him now, or run after their mounts and be shot down by Caleb. They turned to him.

One, two, three… nine. Nine men total, against the two of them.

It wouldn’t have been a fair fight against anyone else.

Pyrrhus’ focus expanded, hypervigilant. He heard Caleb laughing, throwing himself off Dirt and onto the back of one of the outlaws with a thud as they both tumbled to the ground. Heard Dirt snort and draw back, herding Rain away from the fracas. The angry squeal the stallion gave and then the sharp scream of a man who’s just been bitten reminded them all there’s a difference between a warhorse and a simple riding mount.

The men had mostly kept hold of their swords and swung at him now all together, thinking to overwhelm in numbers what skill would not avail them. Pyrrhus hadn’t summoned his swords and still did not - he couldn’t have told you why, in that moment, only that he needed to hit with fists and knees and the whole of his body and not behind a wall of steel. He felt the misstep jangling in his spirit as he threw himself into the fight.

The first blade descended; Pyrrhus ducked under the blow, inside the man’s reach. He caught the wrist, twisted to break the grip, and followed with a punch to the wind with all his not-inconsiderable strength behind it.

More blades crashed down on his shoulders, his back, and twinges of phantom pain - whips, lashes, claws - erupted across his nerves even as his Arbiter armor deflected the edges. Not as many as there could have been, as a little less than half were off pummeling Caleb. Six men now - no, five, the first punched man had fallen wheezing in the dust, he was not getting up soon enough to matter. Pyrrhus’ gaze flicked over them, picking out features and stances - Brawler, Beard, Flashy Coat, Lip Ring, Scar.

Pyrrhus dropped onto the balls of his feet, one leg kicking out to sweep the nearest - Coat - onto his back. The next - Beard - over-extended when the resistance against his sword vanished; Pyrrhus grabbed the man’s wrist to haul himself back upright and toppled the bandit onto his friend as he did. Three down - one for a while, the other two for only as long as it took to disentangle themselves. Three left.

Pyrrhus whirled, ducked again within Brawler’s arc -

\- straight into the man’s other fist. The discordant jangling of his broken rhythm roared in his ears.

Blood erupted from his nose as Pyrrhus grunted under the impact and staggered back into Scar.

“Ow, _fuck--_ ”

“Doin’ all righ’ over there, Zenith?” came Caleb’s sing-song voice.

Scar wrapped an arm across Pyrrhus’ throat, cutting off his protest. Pyrrhus twisted to one side and jabbed an elbow into the man’s ribs, his other hand wrapped around Scar’s arm, trying to drag it off from crushing his windpipe. Brawler went for him, but Pyr put his weight on Scar’s arm and kicked off Brawler’s chest, throwing him and Scar backwards into the dirt. The man’s hold on him loosened with the impact and Pyrrhus wriggled sideways.

Brawler recovered and aimed a kick of his own at Pyrrhus, who rolled away from it and back to his feet. The man telegraphed his movements a mile out, and if Pyrrhus had been paying attention earlier, he would not have gotten his nose broken for his trouble.

Pyrrhus took a moment to pause, watching the others. He wasn’t centered, wasn’t ready for this - but he could fake it long enough to defeat them. He stepped into the kata the Arbiters called _meditation on the enemy_ and felt some of the discord soothed away _._  

Beard and Coat had managed to get back up but were staying out of reach, more wary than the others. Pyrrhus scrubbed the blood from his face with the back of his right hand and beckoned for Brawler to advance as if they stood in a training arena.

It was over in a few more exchanges, hard-driven fists against bone and flesh, now he had his grounding. The five lay collapsed around him, senseless or nearly. He let go of his Arbiter armor; the hardened essence melting away like ice into his anima.

Caleb sauntered by with an unconscious outlaw slung over his shoulder, blood streaming down his face but otherwise cheerful. He dumped the man with Pyrrhus’ five then systematically started going through their pockets. “I admit, I was right worried there for a tick. But that was a good fight. You hurt?”

“Just my pride.” Pyrrhus leaned over, and with essence trailing from his fingers like foxfire, pulled his nose straight. A fresh smatter of blood hit the sand.


	4. Chapter 4

_Caleb_

 

The town of Crosscreek filled an open valley of the canyonlands, surrounded by cuts and tunnels into the rock, on a rise beside a dry riverbed. It catered to merchant caravans and so a large portion of the space was set aside for camping, corrals for beasts of burden, and trading posts. Pyrrhus was able to negotiate for the purchase of a cloak of his own  and return Caleb’s serape to him. The Zenith hadn’t brought much coin with him, not knowing what to expect, but folk around here were used to all kinds of currency and his Imperial Jade was accepted with no trouble.

The pair turned their captives over to the local sheriff, slung and tied over their own horses. The men were known to the people here, and they’d been glad to see them brought to justice. The bandits would be spending the night cooling their heels in the local gaol, their sentencing scheduled for the next morning. 

Crosscreek had exactly one inn which doubled as the town’s main drinking establishment. There were a dancing hall as well, but as it had no rooms for rent for longer than an hour or two Caleb passed it right by. They settled into the other place, called the Tanglefoot Ford, late in the dusty afternoon, to while away the last hours of light. 

Caleb returned to their table from the bar and sat down heavily, plunking down two shot glasses and a bottle of whisky on the table. He poured one for each of them, sliding Pyrrhus’ across the rough wood towards him. “Alright, talk. What’s eatin’ at ya?”

Pyrrhus lifted a hand to decline the whisky. The knuckles were bruised and scraped still; he’d cleaned the dried blood off when they’d arrived but the broken skin bled when he flexed his fingers. His nose had stopped bleeding too, though the flesh was puffy and tender.  “I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”

“I saw you fight today, all fists and vinegar. Man like you don’t fight like that unless he’s got something to prove or something to lose. So which is it?” Caleb tossed back his shot nearly without tasting it and refilled it, sloshing a bit more into Pyrrhus’ glass by way of encouragement. Caleb wasn’t unscathed either; a blow to the face had left his eyebrow split and bleeding, and his own knuckles were bloodily abused.

“Neither. Nothing. I’m… It’s fine.” Pyrrhus rolled his shoulders - somewhere between a shrug and a gesture of frustration. His eyes flicked over the other patrons at the tavern, settling on staring at a spot near the entrance. “Didn’t you fight just the same?”

“Sure, but errybody knows I love me a good brawl. Have a drink, partner. Loosen up a bit. Ain’t gonna hurt you none, an’ might help ya get out what ya need.” He’d maybe not told this Solar that Lysistrata had told him a damn sight more than what he’d been letting on. There weren’t any threats down here (yet) that needed taking care of, but there was a man in pain and Lys thought Caleb best suited for the task of fixing it. Caleb wasn’t so sure himself, but he figured an attempt was in order, hence the whisky. 

_ Some bro time, _ she’d laughed when she told him.  _ He’s all shook up and we’ll need him at his best again soon enough. He wouldn’t respond well to my kind of preparation.  _ Caleb shifted in his seat and took another sip of whisky before the memories of her kind of healing could do more than whisper in the back of his head. The sudden rush of heat to his face was easily blamed on the booze. 

Pyrrhus regarded the drink as one might a quiescent but venomous snake. “It is not permitted, by my Order.”

Caleb scoffed. “Well it ain’t the biggest pile of shit I’ve heard so far, but it’s close. Seen plenty of monks drownin’ their troubles in the bars down here, same as everybody else.”

“Just because they choose to forsake their obligations does not mean I will.” Pyrrhus still wasn’t looking at him when he talked, and his voice toneless and flat. He weren’t speaking with any great amount of conviction, and Caleb figured Pyrrhus was speaking out of old “shoulds”. Caleb was familiar with shoulds. He didn’t care for them much. 

“Alright, sure, if ya like.” Caleb rocked his chair back, the old wood creaking under him. “Crosscreek ain’t my home, surely, but I been here often enough to know folk. See that fella over there? The Guild had his gal killed in front of him for some petty sin. He ain’t over it yet, though I helped him make sure the Guild suffered just as much. And that darling on the stairs? She agreed to a night an’a day with a kuma warlord, to spare her family. When they found out what she done to save their hides, they beat her, then they shunned her. I brought her here.” 

Caleb sipped at his whisky, this time taking a moment to actually savor the burn as it went down. “An’ me? Well, you heard how I got chose, maybe you didn’t hear afore that I weren’t no upstanding citizen. Kilt folks, stole from ‘em, worse things. No rape, though, ‘least that’s not hanging ‘round my neck.”

Pyrrhus flinched at the mention of rape; not so much that anyone else would see but Caleb, watching for such a thing, noticed. Pyrrhus glanced at him, then away. “You’re telling me everyone has ...pasts. Has things that eat at them.”

“Knew you were more than just a pretty face, Zenith.” Caleb nodded at the shot glass in front of the man. “Match me.”

“What? No, I--”

“Yain’t fraid, are ya?” 

“No--”

“Match me, then. We’ll make equal fools of ourselves.” 

Pyrrhus stared at him with that poker face long enough Caleb thought he’d get shot down again. Finally that sky-sharp gaze softened, tense shoulders slumped and the other Solar reached for the glass. He tossed it back like a man more experienced in drinking than he’d let on, lips thinning at the terrible taste of it. It was good southron whisky; didn’t mean it was actually good. Pyrrhus slid his glass over for more. “Given our natures, you’re probably going to need another bottle.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caleb's problem solving methods are not very diverse. It's limited to booze, talking, whoring, fists, and guns, more or less in that order. And given that the two of them are high-stamina solars, in game mechanics terms, it's gonna take a lot of booze.


	5. Chapter 5

_Pyrrhus_

 

In fact, it took two more bottles. At some point, while they were still more or less steady on their feet, they’d moved to a room upstairs with their gear in hand. Pyrrhus was sprawled on the bed, leaning against the wall, feeling uncomfortably warm and just that side of drunk. Sufficiently so talking seemed like a good idea, and drinking more terrible whisky even better.

Caleb  was all knees and elbows down on the floor, with only the slightest flush of his sunburned cheeks and glaze of the eyes to indicate his level of inebriation. Much less than Pyrrhus’, he guessed. Or the other Solar was far more used to this level of drinking. That was more likely.

“...An’ then… an’ then she says… she says ‘Even Ignis Divine could not still Caleb’s tongue,’” Caleb was saying, imitating the higher tones of a well-bred lady. He was in the middle of a story about some bar fight he’d had with the last Solar he knew, laughing with the memories.  “Boy an’ she struck me with that one, but then she broke the man’s wrist for me so I guess she don’t mind me too much. Hell of a lady, that one. I oughta introduce you while yer down here, if’n we can find her.”

“Alright,” Pyrrhus said abruptly into the brief silence that followed. He took a drink straight from the bottle, settling it back into its spot leaning against his hip. “Where should I start?”

“Oh, ready now? Good.” Caleb sat up a little straighter. “Aah… why don’tcha start whenever the trouble was?”

Pyrrhus tapped at his forehead, indicating the place where the caste mark would glow. “When hasn’t there been?”

Caleb rolled his eyes and flung the cork from an empty bottle at him. Pyrrhus caught it after it’d bounced off his chest and rolled it between his palms. “No, sorry. I know when it was. When I came back. Last year, during the Shadowland waves - you remember them?”

“Hell, who doesn’t. All sort of shit got dragged up then.”

“Yes. That was the battle I was fighting, on the Sacred Mount.” Pyrrhus gestured vaguely northwards, towards Mount Meru.

“Shit, man, that was _you_? You’re the Lightbringer?” Caleb nearly spat out the mouthful of whisky he’d just taken. “The Redeemer of Dragons... and _you_?”

“Oh gods, when will that name die.” Pyrrhus grimaced, chucking the cork back at Caleb with more force than he’d intended. It pinged off the man’s shoulder and rolled away under the chest of drawers. “Yes. Me, Akaris, a handful of friends, a Legion of the Imperial Army, and … a lot of other things.”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard the singer’s tales. Lemme hear it from you. Why’s it eatin’ you? You won, cuz you’re here… but winnin’ ain’t clean as they say, is it.” Caleb huffed a breath and bounced his foot, the spurs on his heels jingling in counterpoint. For a moment Pyrrhus saw the old soul, the wilderness survivor, the scarred warrior beneath Caleb’s cheerful devil-may-care mask as his smile faded.

“No, it’s not.” Pyrrhus scrubbed at his face.

With slow and careful sentences, each word removed cautiously out of the vault he’d sealed them in, Pyrrhus told Caleb of the Underworld. It was a struggle to get it out at all, and he had to pause for breath - for composure, to calm his racing heart and shaky hands - and whisky multiple times. Caleb said nothing while Pyrrhus worked it out, just watched intently, hands folded beneath his scruffy chin.

He told of Mistress, and her whip and her broken corpses and profane sexuality and casual cruelty both. Of the Monstrance and the Labyrinth, and all the disasters within and since. How he’d broken vows kept for a lifetime, and the disturbing lack of remorse about it that came over him sometimes, the crushing guilt at others. Of the Paragon casting him down, the crunch of his bones beneath her maul and his religious authority with it.

“An’ sometimes ya wake in the night and yer breath won’t come, an’ you think you see _that woman_ coming for you, and you react like you’re taught an’ trained - an’ one of these days, you’re ‘fraid it’s not goin’ to be a pillow or a piece o’ furniture that takes the brunt o’it. It’s gonna be someone y’love.” Caleb took a long pull of his whisky, settling it back down very carefully on the wood floor. His gaze was unfocused out the western window.

“We call it bein’ quickburned, out here. Somethin’ happens, burns you right down into your soul. The fire never dies out all the way, you jest get flares an’ crackles every so often, an’ the smell of the smoke of it never seems to leave.” Caleb heaved himself to his feet, swayed a little and took the three steps necessary to drop against the wall and mattress at the foot of the bed. “You been quickburned, friend.”

“Sounds like so have you.”

“I mebbe have.”

Pyrrhus took a drink and squinted at Caleb. The other man just nodded, and both of them stilled in the heat. The last third of the amber liquid in Pyrrhus’ bottle rolled gently against the glass as he breathed.

“Them things that happened,” Caleb said after a time. “They weren’t your fault.”

“What?” Pyrrhus struggled upright; he’d been sliding down the wall bit by bit. “Yes, they were. If I hadn’t antagonized --”

“No--” Caleb turned and made a grab for the front of Pyrrhus’ tunic, getting his fist around the front crossed hem. “No, it ain’t. You got no responsibility for what other people do.”

“Bullssh… No. I have seen Solar magics force people. Not mine--” Pyrrhus shoved Caleb’s arm away but the man wouldn’t let go.

“You ain’t responsible,” Caleb insisted, shaking him a bit. “Don’t care what other Lawgivers do. For you: You ain’t at fault. Sooner you realize that, sooner those fires’ll bank. That and --”

Caleb let him go and turned on the bed to face him head on, hands dropped limply in his lap. Again it’s the veteran that’s watching him, not the laughing gunslinger. “Don’t keep it all in your head. You keep it in there, it’s gonna eat you up like poison. You gotta spit that out. Over an’ over, ‘slong as it takes, y’hear me? Until it don’t steal your voice with the telling, until you’re not _there_ anymore when you say it.”

Pyrrhus turns his gaze aside, focusing anywhere than the other man’s intent brown eyes. It has been twenty years at least since he was a novice, since others _taught_ him with the same sort of implacable truth as Caleb was attempting to impart. The only parallel he could make now was learning a new form or style from Five Days Darkness, but he’d neglected that aspect of his life since the Mountain. “How do you _know_ ? How _can_ you know what helps? How can anybody?”

“Because you ain’t t’only one, smartass. Sure an’ some might not have as world-shatteringly terrible shit as yer story, but we’re all still human last I checked. Still got the same reactions to the bad happenin’ to us.”

Pyrrhus shut his mouth with a click of teeth. His own words were coming back to him through Caleb’s ridiculous Southron dialect. A day in Meru, a few years ago, before the Circle broke apart and scattered, came to the forefront of his mind. He remembered arguing with Gaelen about the running of their burgeoning city, about how Gaelen seemed to think the flaws of humanity didn’t apply to him - to them - anymore. Caleb was still talking.

“Had a gal what told me what I’m tellin’ you. I might’ve opened my own veins to the desert if she’d not got to me. She made me believe it.” Caleb sniffed, shrugged, hitched at his dusty shirtsleeves. “We ain’t perfect, even though Sun gave us egos the size of Creation when he stuffed sunlight down our britches. It ain’t your fault, an’ ya don’t get to keep it bottled up, hear me?”

“Yes. Yes, I hear you.”

“Good. Let that sink in for a bit. I gotta go see a man ’bout a dog.” Caleb shoved himself up again and left the room, clattering down the hall as he went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The battle Pyrrhus is referring to takes place during the Storium game Adamant Codex, and the story here on AO3 Sun in the Labyrinth.


	6. Chapter 6

_Caleb_

 

Caleb didn’t come back right away, and that was fine. He’d pressed maybe a mite more than he should have, but he could blame that on the whisky if he needed. Not that he was done, no, but he reckoned he ought to give the man a bit of time to process before he baited that tiger again.

He sat down at the bar once he was done with that dog and ordered actual food to settle the liquor in his blood, asked the dove working the kitchen if she’d send up the same to his friend. Pyrrhus was a big man, bigger than him by a bit, but he couldn’t drink for shit. He might still have all his words, and more or less in the right order too, but Caleb was pretty sure if he stood up he’d fall straight onto his face. Best send the food to him, than the other way round.

That darling he’d mentioned earlier came in from the yard and without so much as a how-do-you-do sat herself down next to him and stole a chunk of his roll straight off his plate. “Hey now, Rosaline, getcher own.”

“I will, darlin’,” she said around a bite of good brown bread. “But you wouldn’t let a gal go hungry, would you?”

“‘Course not. But now ya owe me,” Caleb laughed, scooping up the last of his steak and chile.

“I’ve owed you since Providence, Caleb! When you gon’ collect?” Rosaline propped her elbows on the bar in such a way that her bosom threatened to overflow the neckline of her dress. Caleb weren’t stupid, and Rosaline knew very well what he liked. She had no choice but to know, after the akuma warlord got done with her.  

Caleb shook his head and pushed away his empty plate. “Not like that, sugar. Not from you, at least not yet. You jest keep tellin’ me all them secrets you hear, alright?”

“O’ course, duck.” She pouted prettily for a moment before dropping a kiss on his cheek and disappearing with a swish of skirts.

Caleb leaned back against the bar for a moment, contemplating the wisdom of that particular choice. But no, he couldn’t conscience it, no matter what she said, not after what she’d been through. And the girl had a taken a bit of a fancy to him - rightly, since he saved her and all, not that Caleb’s preening a bit - and it wouldn’t be right to take advantage.

Besides, it weren’t like no other gals in town (with a little less history weighing on them) wouldn’t mind a visit from their favorite gunslinger. The ladies of his acquaintance heard everything eventually; maybe one of them would have some notion about why he and Pyrrhus were supposed to be hanging round. Caleb saluted to the barkeep, tossed him the silver for his meal, and headed out into the soft Southern evening.

Crosscreek had but the one dancing hall, with gals who danced on and off-stage. And as the town catered to guild and merchant folk of all stripes - and the guards what came with them - there were more than the usual fillies in a town this size. Most of them knew Caleb on sight, and the rest by reputation. Or so he flattered himself by thinking.

Caleb stepped up the sway and the weave of his walk as he approached the place, letting more of the drunk shine through. It gave him quite the excuse to bump and careen off the rich Guild bastards walking out, and fill his fingers with their stolen silver.

“Shove off!”

“Watch it, spooney!”

“Aw, don’ mind me, fellas, jus’ … ah, jus… now, where’s that? Oh, hello darlin’!” Caleb fell through the swinging doors and, with a beatific smile and definitely glazed eyes, right into the embrace of the gal nearest the doors. She wore bright colored skirts in purples and black, a bodice cut low enough he could see near straight to her navel.

“Caleb, as I live and breathe. Where you been?” Not taken in by his friendly play-acting, the gal shoved him off with rolled eyes and the flutter of a feather-trimmed lacy fan.

“Here an’ there.” Caleb settled for leaning against the wall next to her, back to the wood paneling. “Where’s Miz Isobel? Like t’have a word or three if she ain’t too busy.”

“Upstairs, most like. Think you can make it that far, cowboy?”

“Still standin’, ain’t I?” Caleb straightened up and gave the lady a short bow, wobbling only a little when his head swam on the way up. “Thanks, miz Fern. Might be I’ll see you later?”

She gave him a once-over, then flipped her fan up to cover her face so he couldn’t see her smile. “Might be, once you stop bleedin’ all over Miz Izzie’s nice clean floors. Honestly, Caleb, do you go lookin’ for fights or do they just happen to you like weather?”

“Aw, darlin’, you know me. Can’t help myself.” Caleb smiled wearily and headed off into the back of the house and the stairs thereby.

Madam Isobel Sadler was a fine business woman, and her ownership of the one hall in town fine proof of that. Others had tried, and failed, to set up similar enterprises in town, but Miz Izzie’s monopoly on the finest booze, the finest hall, and the finest gals had held.

Caleb had ingratiated himself by bouncing riff-raff and hostile takeover forces the first few weeks she’d held ownership, and generally making sure no one tried to oust her by other means. Her rep was rock solid now, enough so she could afford to look cross at his presence. Caleb was trouble, well-meaning as he was, and they both knew it.

“Evenin’, sugar, got a moment?”

“If I say no, will you go away?” Miz Izzie indicated a chair and he flopped down in it while she finished with whatever papers she was dealing with on her desk. Caleb watched the flick and stroke of her brush as she wrote with tidy precision, sinking further into the plush upholstery.

“I jus’ wanna know if you or the gals have heard anything from up Curesprings way. Got some inklin’ there’s trouble, want to know what kind it is.” He rested his forehead on two fingers, his hat falling down his back as the motion dislodged it.

“Curesprings? No, that town’s as quiet as the grave. Ain’t had nobody through from there in a coupla’ weeks. Caravan season’s early yet though so maybe still.” Her brush stilled over her paper while she thought. “What’s got you thinkin’ that way, Caleb?”

“Stars,” he replied with half a shrug. “Feelin’s. Superstitious nonsense yer so fond of.”

“I am not--” she put her brush down on its little ceramic rest and turned to face him proper, flicking her practical braid over her shoulder. Caleb let his eyes wander appreciatively over the long line of her neck and shoulder. “Caleb! You bleedin’ on my things! Get off with ya.”

“Aw, darlin’, I rode hard all day and a fight at the end of it, you gonna make me get up now?”

“Off my nice chair with your filthy bloody self. Go get a bath.”

Caleb gave her a bit of a genial leer as he levered himself out of the wingback. “You gonna join me?”

"Out, Caleb."


	7. Chapter 7

Pyrrhus had been still asleep, sprawled across the bed, when Caleb came in the next morning a little after dawn to fetch his gear. The food he had sent up had been eaten, at least, but the last of the whisky bottles had also been conspicuously empty, set on the tray with the dishes. 

Now he stood next to Caleb, a little pale round the mouth but steady enough, both of them clean-shaven and presentable if a bit hungover. One of the gals at the hall last night had even stitched up that bitty cut on Caleb’s brow (“It’ll be a handsome scar,” she’d assured him). 

The folks they’d hauled in yesterday were getting what was coming for them. They were known men, wanted men, round here, and Caleb had collected a fine bounty in addition to the silver collected from their pockets. There were a loose bunch of people round the post out back of the local gaol, mostly those who’d been robbed or otherwise done wrong by the sorry souls now waiting. A few to gloat, a few to see justice got dispensed, a few because those boys were coming to them as labor after. 

After they got their due penalty. 

Pyrrhus was watching as they led the first man out to the post and tied him there, stripped to the waist. The marshal was reading out the charges (“robbery, assault, an’ bein’ a right nusiance to the free trade of Crosscreek an’ her neighbors”) and the deputy was swinging his arms back and forth, a short whip coiled at his hip. 

“What is the custom here?” Pyrrhus asked.

“They get a coupla stripes, mostly to remind ‘em of the consequences o’ crossin’ civilized folk, then they get to work off their debt by servin’ the folk they stole from. In chains, usually, less’n they behave.” Caleb shrugged, fished out a cigarette from his belt pouch and stuck it in his mouth without lighting it, just to have something there. 

Pyrrhus nodded, shortly, crossed his arms under his new mantle (tossed over his shoulders like an overlarge scarf) and waited. Finally the sentence was read out as a number of lashes and the deputy stepped up. 

The first lash whistled through the air and cracked across the man’s back with a  _ slap. _

Pyrrhus went stiff at the sound, a breathy hiss of pain escaping him. Caleb chalked it up to sympathetic reaction until some instinct prompted him to take a good hard look at the man. Lightbringer was pale, pale, and trembling, his eyes staring out into nowhere. 

“Pyrrhus? Hey, friend, you with me?”

The sound of the whip kept on in the background with the offender’s yawping, but Caleb’s attention was suddenly all for the other man. Pyrrhus’ castemark was starting to glitter dangerously and power built up around his shoulders, but he still weren’t focused on nothing. “Pyr? Hey, Lightbringer--”

He laid a hand on Pyrrhus’ elbow and was thrown off so hard he staggered back. Pyrrhus turned glazed glowing eyes on him, the hand at his side now balling up.  _ Oh, Shit-- _

Caleb remembered that first morning, seeing that scarred up back, put it together with the story at the bottom of the whisky bottle late in yesterday’s afternoon. Pyrrhus wasn’t seeing the South anymore, wasn’t seeing old wood buildings and people meting out rough justice. 

Pyrrhus was seeing the dark catacombs of the Underworld; was back in that place with the bone whip at his back, surrounded by failure and death. With that Mistress trying to break his mind and spirit to her will.

Caleb hadn’t had flashbacks himself but he’d walked enough damsels in distress through their attacks that he recognized the signs. A solar in a flashback - well, he reckoned that was a mite more dangerous than a mortal southron woman. Some of the folk round turned to look, but Caleb waved them off. 

“C’mon, man, not here. C’mon with me,” Caleb coaxed. He carefully did not lay a hand on the man again aside from taking the hem of the mantle and leaning, leading them out of the circle of people, away from the sound of the whip. Pyrrhus came, but stiffly, like leading a blindfolded horse.  

Caleb kept up a litany of calm prattle as he cast about for a safer place - safer for Pyrrhus, safer for the townsfolk if the other Solar let his power get away from him.  “Pyrrhus, you ain’t there, partner. You ain’t down in the dark. It’s just me here, just me, ol’ Caleb, and we’re out in the sunshine in Crosscreek. Remember Crosscreek? Their whisky ain’t too good but boy howdy, can they cook a good steak--”

They came back round a shed at the end of a corral, nothing but scrubby grass and bits of farm tools set out for repair and never done. Caleb got Pyrrhus sitting down and dropped down next to him, keeping up the steady talk. He chatted like he would to a spooky horse, talking about nothing in particular - things he was seeing, stories about lizards in the desert, the merits of this or that town’s alcohol or food or ladies - but keeping the easy tone. 

If there was one thing Caleb was decent at, it was filling the air with talk. That and shooting things.  He kept at it for the better part of half an hour, letting the man find his own way back. Towards the end he noticed a nice round rock a bit smaller than the size of his fist soaking up the sun by his foot; he picked it up and handed it to Pyrrhus.

The rock seemed to steady him, heavy in his hands; Pyrrhus shook his head and blinked, some focus coming back to his gaze. The glitter started fading from his brow. He turned it over and over in his hands. 

“Hey now, Pyrrhus, you back with me? Remember where ya are?”

“I-- almost.” It was barely above a whisper, hoarse with the memory of screams. Pyrrhus wiped his mouth on his hand and tried again. “Crosscreek. South.”

“Right you are, friend, right you are. Here under Ignis Divine jus’ like me. No unnatural dead for miles unless you wanna be counting Auntie Tessa’s pot roast.” Caleb switched his cigarette - still unlit - to the other side and tipped the brim of his hat back a bit. “You gonna punch me again if I touch ya?” 

“What… No. I hit you?” Pyrrhus looked up from the rock, brows drawing together in worry. 

“Was more of a shove. A hard one.” Caleb shrugged. “Hey, no worries, Zenith, I been hit harder by my horse. You didn’t do nothing. You wanna talk about it? Where’d you go?” He looped an arm around the other man’s shoulders in a friendly hold. It always seemed to help the gals, and he didn’t think it was entirely on account of his dashing good looks either (he weren’t willing to discount it though, and Pyrrhus wasn’t so bad looking himself). 

Pyrrhus shook his head mutely and pinched the bridge of his nose with a hand, the other still clutching the rock like an anchor.

“That’s fine, take yer time.” Caleb leaned into the man, letting his words come slow, give the fellow more time to get himself back together. “Probably my fault, anyways. I shoulda cottoned on that’d maybe be bad for ya. I ain’t too bright some days, despite ol’ Sunny. You had one o’ those burns before?”

“Not… like that. Not awake. In front of people.” Pyrrhus’ trembling was beginning to ease off, breathing steadying and while he still looked pale, there was more animation in his limbs and the glaze had completely left his eyes. “It’s… not a sound I hear regularly.”

“Course not. Why would you, up in the civilized Isle?” 

Pyrrhus thumped sideways into him, then shrugged off Caleb’s arm and hauled himself to his feet. Caleb noted he still hadn’t let go of that rock. “Let’s… ah. Must we stay for the sentencing of all of them?”

“Nah, partner. C’mon. Go pack up our gear an’ I’ll get the horses ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about giving Pyr a day or two before I inflicted more on him, but eh. Once it rains, right?


	8. Chapter 8

_Pyrrhus_

The ride out of town was mostly silent, picking their way through the narrow canyons. Caleb didn’t take them by the main road east, instead going towards the northern edge and into the roughs. There were plenty of cuts and notches in the rock, but for the most part they were only wide enough for one abreast, so Pyrrhus and Rain dropped back.

“Mind, I ain’t meaning to let up on you just on account of that,” Caleb said a few hours later, as if the thread of conversation from the night before had never been dropped.

“As you like,” Pyrrhus replied, but Caleb had kept going, a hurried explanation tossed back over his shoulder as they negotiated a narrow turn.

“I don’t know how much time they’re gonna give us - and fella, I sure would like t’see you on the mend before you go. Leastaways seein’ the path. I reckon it’s real hard to do much protectin’ of other folk when your mind’s burned, an’ ain’t that what Sun called us for. Course, you got a real family, too.”

“I… Of course.” Pyrrhus narrowed his eyes at the other man’s back. “I feel it is impolite to question aid rendered, desired or not, but I’d still like to know.”

“Know what?” Caleb twisted around in his saddle; he wasn’t even holding the reins, they were looped loosely around the horn over a coil of thin rope. “Oh, y’mean, why’m wanting to help ya?”

“Essentially.”

“I said, didn’t I? Got burned myself, someone helped me out of it. Wanna pass that along. Still burned, really - that kinda thing never really goes away - but when you’re standin’ in the midst of it, it’s hard to see the way back to… well, not normal, ‘zactly, but as close as may be. Gotta have help, and I’ve never known a fella ask for help when he needs it.” Caleb turned back around.

“Ah. So, somewhat a case of ‘who heals the healer’?” It was warm enough now the mantle was too much, so while Rain followed sedately in Dirt’s trail, Pyrrhus shucked hat and cloak alike.

“Ee-yeah, like enough. Go on then, tell me about where ya went this morning. It ain’t for me, reckon, it’s for you to get it out.”

Pyrrhus frowned, replaced his hat against the sun and laced Rain’s traces back between his fingers while he thought. Even pulling up the memory of that morning set his hands trembling and he set them firmly against the saddlebow.  

“Right. This morning.”

“Aye. Start where y’like. Tell Rain, if it’s less… I dunno, awkward. Dirt an’ I can go on ahead.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll… manage. You don’t need to. This morning…” It was easier, a bit, directing his comments to Rain; his mount’s ears flicked back attentively. And if sometimes the narrative dropped to hoarse murmur, neither Caleb nor Rain called him to account for it.  

They stopped at a Waystation of alabaster and obsidian housing a tiny spring-fed pool around noon, long enough to stretch and let the horses rest a moment. The spring was another of Rivela’s, Caleb told him. A few baked adobe buildings clustered around it, falling slowly into disrepair, the clay crumbling away.

They let the horses drink and refilled their own water containers.  There were a few traders camped out nearby, and Caleb traded for fresh food to supplement their trail meals. They were  headed out again before the hour was over, northwards and a little east, eating flatbread rolled around spiced meat, beans, and vegetables while still in the saddle.

Pyrrhus was not the kind of man to unearth his thoughts by speaking them. Once, before, he would have gone out to the estate and worked until the words condensed and fell into orderly rivulets he could pour onto pages and paper. Or before the farm, picked up a staff and trained until his muscles burned but the debris of his mind had vanished in smoke, leaving only the gleam of purified prose behind.

Here, though, there is no work to do. Just travel, the slow way, by his mount’s hooves and Caleb’s navigation.  He cannot even take Rain for a hard fast gallop; Rain is not his Sorin, to compensate for his rider’s lack of skill, nor is there the flat open space necessary for such recklessness. All he can do is sit while Rain walked and guide his mount in the little ways; adjust his weight, watch for hazards, keep a quiet hand on the reins.

A knot formed between his shoulderblades that was almost itchy - the need to do something with nothing to actually _do._ He felt congested; too many scattered fragments vying for attention in the halls of of his mind. Once he could meditate for hours on a single thought, but like everything else, the last year has thrown him so off balance even that discipline he knows he must relearn. It is doubly frustrating to come to a thing from the beginning having known it fully once and mastery - re-mastery - does not come easily. The constraints _gall_ him.

The virtues, the metaphysical pillars upon which the entirety of Creation rests, have been his touchstone, navigating the backtrail of corruption, ill-use, and simple misinformation within his Order. Conviction, Valor, Temperance, Compassion. He’d always been taught four, found reference to four, had had it insisted there had always ever been four… but it didn’t fit. There’d been five directions, five seasons, five elements, five castes, five fates - there must be five virtues.  Like a puzzle piece that fits, but not perfectly, he’d felt it in his bones there had been something missing.

He did find it, though, down in the dark and the madness and pain. Humility. Learning that last, lately found, virtue is possibly the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. The lessons never seem to end.

The sun had set while they rode, vanishing first behind rock walls and then painting the earth red as they came up onto arid grassy plains. Caleb stopped once they hit the flats and stood up in his stirrups, shading his eyes with one hand and gauging the sun’s distance to the horizon with the other. Not long.

“We made pretty good time,” Caleb was saying, wheeling Dirt around in a tight circle. “I got a good spot I use for camping when I come by this way, not too far.”

“How long is it to Curesprings?” Pyrrhus asked, rolling his shoulders. That spot in his shoulderblades was still there.

“Oh, couple days still. We gotta follow where the water and the browse is, or we’d be there a mite faster. Only so much I can do t’speed things up.” As he spoke, golden essence flickered along Dirt’s reins as they had that first night, nearly invisible in the red sunset light.

Their pace picked up as they followed a dry riverbed westward. Sunset didn’t linger here as it did on the Isle, and heat vanished with the light. As the stars bloomed overhead, another flowered into being much further down the riverbed.

“What in the blazes… somebody’s at my spot already!”  

“Is that bad?”

“Likely not. At the very least, they oughta share the fire with us.” Dirt picked up to a trot and the two were shortly just outside of earshot of the circle of firelight on the rivershore. The fire was partly obscured by a stand of spreading mesquite trees, and grass grew thicker and greener around them.

Caleb pulled Dirt to a stop; the stallion circled tightly once before halting and Caleb turned round to Pyrrhus. “Alright, lemme do the talkin’. These are like to be my people, hell, they may even know me. I’ll go on in first, aye?”

“I will follow your lead.” Pyrrhus nodded in agreement, keeping his position several long paces trailing. Caleb swung down from Dirt and looped the stallion’s reins loosely in his hands; Pyrrhus followed suit and waited.

The other two sauntered into the circle of light, Caleb holding his hands open and wide in friendly greeting. “Howdy folks, ain’t no call t’be alarmed, just wanting to -- aw, blazes, it’s ya’ll.”

As Pyrrhus came around the side he saw - that wasn’t a riverbank or rock around the far side of the fire. There was a long yellow scaled dragon resting on the sand of the shore,  its head resting on neatly crossed talons and its white eyes watching on Caleb and himself. There were two figures standing between the fire and the two solars… one of whom...

One of them standing across from the dragon was very familiar to him - the Sidereal Caiden, who’d brought him South in the first place. Both people were dressed as though they had just stepped from upscale lodgings in the Imperial City, in silks and fine leather, rather than for the middle of the desert evening. Caiden waved cheerfully. “Hi, guys!”

The other silhouette proved to be a woman dressed in an ao bai of red silk brocade embroidered with falcons and flames, with shining black hair done up in an intricate arrangement of braids, loops, and ornament. Her eyes were dark, reflecting red from the firelight behind her, and though her smile seemed sincere enough she immediately put Pyrrhus ill at ease.

“What’re yall doin’ out here, anyhow?” Caleb asked. He cocked his head and hooked thumbs behind his belt buckle.

“Nice to see you too, Caleb,” said the woman replied, stepping into his personal space and gifting him with a very much more than friendly kiss, pressed against him.

Caiden caught Pyrrhus’ gaze beyond and made an exaggerated eye roll. Pyrrhus huffed a breath of a laugh and led Rain around to the trees and the browse beneath, settling the horse for the night.

“...Not that I don’t appreciate seein’ ya, Lysistrata, but… why, ‘zactly?” Caleb said when she was done, a casual arm around the woman’s waist. Caleb’s horse snorted into her hair and dropped his head to lip at her sleeve, apparently offended she didn’t have a hat for him to steal.

“Your quest has changed, Wraithshot,” Lysistrata replied. “The place--”

“Wait - Wraithshot?” Pyrrhus paused in the act of pulling his packs down from the saddle, staring at his travelling companion. “You’re Wraithshot? The one who defeated the demons of Shattered Earth last year? By himself?”

“Aw, hellfires, Lys, you’ve gone an’ dished it good.” Caleb sighed and turned away from Lysistrata, leading Dirt over to browse near Rain. “Yeah, that’s me. Said we both got stories, didn’t I? I’m likely as proud of that as you are ‘bout the bloody lady, an’ I was just as ‘alone’ as you were. Great many folk I let down o’er that.”

“And a great many more you saved, and I have the paperwork to prove it,” Lysistrata retorted, smacking him in the rump as she passed. She settled down on a tree stump inside the curve of the dragon Iyanden’s tail, crossing her legs at the knee. “Anyway, Caleb, darling --”

“We really do need you to get to Curesprings as quickly as possible, now, whatever the other plan was,” Caiden said, interrupting. He was sketching glyphs in the air, drawing out long rectangles of rice paper prayer strips from his fingers. “Nothing was supposed to happen there, or anywhere near, for the next month, but now it’s dropped out of Fate and we need you to find out why.”

“Yes, your boys’ week out is going to have to wait, I’m afraid. The bureau has assigned this a higher priority.”

“Then why ain’t you lookin’ into it, dove?”

Pyrrhus listened to the back and forth with something like fury rising in his chest, and he stepped away from Rain so the horse wouldn’t pick up on his distress. _Nothing was supposed to happen_ … he’d been lied to.

He hadn’t been needed after all, they’d drawn him away from his family, from where he _was_ needed-- He may have expected lies from Caiden and the other Sidereal; deception being part of their stock in trade. And he should not have expected better from Caleb, despite his earthy manner - he does not even know the man. It isn’t like Solars are inherently trustworthy - his experiences with his own Circle had taught him that.

And yet. And yet.

Oh, betrayal hurts like nothing else.

“I _am_ looking into it, cowboy. I have delegated two exceptionally competent and powerful Chosen of Sol Invictus to investigate, and I look forward to the positive results in a few days.”

“An’ now yer just flattering me.” Caleb finished the last buckle and slid Dirt’s gear off in one armful; blanket, saddle, packs, and all. “Well, yer gonna have to wait a bit; it’s still three days to Curesprings an’ me an’ Dirt are plum tuckered out tonight. Aincha, boyo?”

Dirt whickered on cue, shaking vigorously once his kit was off.

“Sure an’ the Zenith here’d like t’get some shut eye too. He ain’t used to the longrider way like me.”

“We’ve brought fodder for your mounts, supplies for you, and these,” Caiden was tying the prayer strips to both horses’ manes, “...will kick in tomorrow morning once you leave the area. They’re charms to take you the straight way to Curesprings - you’ll be in town by supper.”

“Handy,” Caleb said, starting on a ramble as he worked through camp chores. “Why you doin’ that now though, when I can think of oh, mebbe three hundred times I coulda used that in the last coupla years --”

“What do you mean by ‘nothing was supposed to happen’?” Pyrrhus asked, his voice flat to his own ears. “What are we really doing out here, Raith?”

Pyrrhus saw Caiden’s head snap around, fixing on the Zenith caste. The Sidereal had been around him in some capacity long enough in the last year to recognize the dead calm in his bearing for simmering anger. Had seen what happened after, too.

“Right, well, all your supplies are here, and we’ll just be going now so you can sort it out.” Caiden all but threw himself onto Iyanden’s back as the elemental dragon heaved himself to his feet. Lysistrata climbed up behind him - a feat in a dress like that - and the dragon leapt skyward, dematerializing as it went. “See you in a few days!”

“Raith.” Pyrrhus knew his moods had become far more unstable in the months following the Battle of the Mount, and at the moment he wasn’t particularly focused on reining them in. He crossed the distance to the other Solar with measured steps. Caleb had one of his packs in his hands, squatted on the ground while he dug through it. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Aw, Pyrrhus--” Caleb rose, started to turn -

Pyrrhus hit him.


	9. Chapter 9

_Caleb_

 

Caleb fell onto his rump, all the breath driven out of him. His hat flipped backwards into the sand; his pack and its contents spilled out at his feet. 

Pyrrhus’ fist had bounced off the top of his sternum with a crunch of bone and knuckle; from the look on the other man he might’ve been aiming for Caleb’s skull. “What the hell, Pyrrhus!”

“You lied to me!”

“I ain’t never--” Caleb scrambled to his feet with all the dignity of an offended cat. He stepped up straight into Pyrrhus’ face, nothing phased from the blow, and shoved back hard.  “Nothin’ I told you was wrong. I said shit explodes when them star-blessed are ‘round. Look, it gorram exploded!” 

They were in the black under the trees now, the light from the campfire falling in flickering stripes and patches through the branches. Pyrrhus’ face crossed into the light, masked into a snarl and floating disembodied in the night. 

“But the rest of it! Getting me down here in the first place!” Pyrrhus rocked with Caleb’s shove, darkness swallowing his face for a moment. He came back up with an elbow strike, felt but not seen until firelight flicked across the hard curve of bone. “Luring me away from my family!” 

“That ain’t me, it weren’t  _ me _ ya proddy saphead!” Caleb dodged the strike by a hair’s breadth, taking a half-step back as he leaned, then another as Pyrrhus swung at him again and again, a little more wildly. There was a tree at his back, the rough bark pressed into his palms as he steadied himself.  “All I done is try t’help ya, stop hittin’ at me--”

“ _ I don’t care. _ You knew and you didn’t tell me.” 

“I  _ didn’t know _ . But, fine, you wanna get your horns clipped, let’s go--” Caleb ducked under the low branch a half second before Pyrrhus’ fist crashed into it, skipped backwards five or six steps and shrugged out of his coat. He tossed it into another tree, a phantom shape casting more shadows into the copse.

Pyrrhus is silent now aside from the harshness of his breath, and Caleb can hear him a mile away, darkness or no. He squared up with the other man just in time to catch another elbow strike aimed at his face with his forearm instead, the light splashing orange and gold across Caleb’s arm and Pyrrhus’ chest. He kept his arms up, guarding against more head strikes. 

“Y’know, my mam had a phrase whenever me ‘n’my brothers had a tussle,” Caleb called, dropping and driving his other fist into Pyrrhus’ ribs when he had a chance, at that spot of flickering light. “She called it ‘kinetic conflict res-o-lution.’ Fancy words for not so fancy feelin’s.”

Pyrrhus huffed out a breath that might’ve been a growl or just impact, swaying a half-step back. 

Caleb let his arms drop a little, bouncing on his toes, watching and ready. The man had skill, surely, and he had his Solar essence firmly on lockdown, unlike this morning. There was no glitter along his movements and no caste mark glowing on his face in the dark - this was pure muscle. Angry, anguished muscle.

Normally Caleb had no problems taking a solid hit or two to get him in where he could do some real damage - he was a tough son of a gun - but he had a feeling if he tried that with Pyrrhus he’d be nursing broken bones more than bruises. That, and, he don’t actually want to do real damage to the fella. Pummel the fella into stepping off, maybe, but it’s nobody’s profit if they kill each other. 

Pyrrhus didn’t give him much time to wait. He closed the small distance in flashes, Caleb getting a glimpse of skin, cloth, sky-sharp eyes through the floating dark. He caught a knee strike limned in yellow (blocked with a hip) and then a bunch of vicious punches in quick succession. And Sun in heaven he was  _ fast _ . Caleb took the hits on upraised forearms, twisting to deprive them of power.

At a break in the other Solar’s rhythm he erupted from his hunched defensive stance (Caleb weren’t no winter molasses either), smashing Pyrrhus with a headbutt. Pyrrhus managed to turn aside by a hair, catching the hit on his jaw and ear. As the other reeled from the hit, Caleb (head ringing a bit, seeing stars from more than just fire-cast sparks, both sensations shrugged off by long acquaintance) gave back with his own hits - not as fast, just as powerful - trying to drive the other man back and down. 

Pyrrhus over balanced and stepped back out of the swath of light, then back again, doubling over at the impacts to his belly. The next hit he grabbed and turned into the blow, yanking Caleb forward into Pyrrhus’ back and another elbow strike. Caleb grunted as the hit went home and drove the breath from him, stomping down onto the back of Pyrrhus’ knee. 

Pyrrhus collapsed into the dust, dropping Caleb’s arm as he went into the dark. Caleb went for the guns at his hip.

There was a click. 

“Alrigh’, now,” Caleb said, the barrel of the gun just brushing Pyr’s head where the man was climbing back up to his feet. Pyrrhus froze, half-kneeling. Caleb was huffing for breath, and he felt wetness down the side of his face and burning in his brow; that cut must have opened up again. “Y’done?”

Caleb got a glimpse of sky sharp eyes beneath blond brows as Pyrrhus looked up at him, light splashed across his face. Then he was on his back  _ again _ in the dust and his jaw felt like he’d hit a brick wall. Hellfires, the man was  _ fast _ . 

“Yes,” Pyrrhus said, dropping back down to the dirt next to Caleb and shaking out his hand. “I’m done.”

“Hooo-eeee. Hellfires, man.” Caleb sat up and retrieved his gun, shaking any debris out of the barrel before stuffing it back into his holster. He wiped at his face and came away bloody, black in the firelight. 

“You weren’t going to shoot me.”

“Naw. Just wanted you to slow up a spell.” Caleb stood up, swayed, eyed Pyrrhus to make sure he wasn’t going to get hit again. The other man wasn’t looking at him, his face gone back to that poker-face mask, anger stuffed firmly behind. “Worked, didn’t it?”

“Did you tussle with your brothers often?” Pyrrhus rolled to his feet and stalked back to the horses. Rain danced nervously away from him at first, and Dirt laid his ears flat back, but a murmured word and a deliberate softening of posture had them back on more or less friendly terms. Pyrrhus ducked for the grooming gear while Caleb tried to make sense of the question. 

“Oh. Oh! Ee-yeah, all the time. Mam hated it.” Caleb found his coat and shrugged it back on. The fodder was right where the Sidereals had left it, and he dragged over the bale of hay and bucket of grain, dividing it between the two horses. “But Jack had t’ always have it his way, an’ Gabe wouldn’t lissen, an’ then Jemmie - Jeremiah - would get into it and there we were all in the yard goin’ at it.” 

“But me an’ my brothers were more for wrasslin’... don’t think there were many punches thrown till the last few weeks.” Caleb ran a cursory brush over Dirt’s back, checked his hooves for stones while Pyrrhus finished with Rain. “Always Jack, tryin’ t’be like Pa. Reckon that was probably why Gabe left, anyhow. An’ o’course I had t’go with him. Got him to thank for this whole business.”

“Hmm.” The man let Rain’s hoof go and straightened, running a hand down the proud arch of the grey’s neck. His fingers snagged on the prayer strip Caiden had tied into the mane. “So. Why are we here, Raith?”

“I tol’ ya, I dunno. Suppose we’ll find out t’morrow.” Caleb, done with the fodder, hefted their own packs and headed to the campfire. “Errything I tol’ ya was true. I just maybe left out that Lys - that’d be that gal in the red - Lysistrata’d told me you were in a bit o’ pain, and knowin’ I been there, asked me t’see what I could be doing for you. She said sommat about needing you back in action.”

Pyrrhus let out a low growl of frustration and headed over to the fire himself, stooping to pick up Caleb’s hat as he went. “They must make things more difficult for themselves. If they’d just been honest with me--”

“Y’know, them Sidereals… most of ‘em, I think… well, they regard us something in the line of a good gun, or a warhorse - useful, but not too bright without a hand to wield ‘em. Ain’t saying they’re right, but that’s definitely how Lys thinks. An’ I get the feeling she’s more generous than many o’ her peers.” He accepted his hat and tossed Pyr his pack in return; the other Solar began laying out the bed rolls. “An’ if yer weapon breaks or your horse goes lame, well, ya try to fix it.”

“No, it’s not her and Caiden’s aims I disapprove of, necessarily, Just their methods.” Pyrrhus settled onto his knees and sighed. “I knew I needed help. But the one person I knew who might’ve understood had vanished into the Eastern wyld. Everyone else - well, they were very tolerant, but they couldn’t… they had nothing to compare. I just had to… keep going, as well as I could. And pray.”

“Well, not t’say I’m an answer t’prayer, but... “ Caleb grinned and spread his hands wide. “I’m yer huckleberry.”

Pyrrhus cocked his head. “I’ve followed most of your idioms so far but… huckleberry?”

“Oh. Ah. Means I’m the man for the job. Don’ ask me where it came from, on account of I’ve no idea. Jus’ picked it up somewheres.” The canvas sack near the fire was stuffed full of provisions, and - bless her - Lysistrata had packed a box full of fresh stuff, right on top. For a gal he saw maybe once or twice a season, she sure knew what he liked… though to be fair, that wasn’t hard, as anything that wasn’t trail food was heaven. He stuck the first steamed bun into his mouth and groaned happily. 

“Here,” he said around a mouthful, passing the box to Pyrrhus. The other solar took it absently, then glanced up and frowned. He handed the box back and retrieved something from his own packs. 

“Sit down,” Pyrrhus said, indicating the spot in front of the stump Lysistrata had recently vacated. Caleb complied, flopping down like a string cut puppet. It’s only after Pyrrhus flips open the case he was holding and tilts Caleb’s head with a firm hand he realizes the man is fixing to clean up the gash he busted open. “Sorry. I didn’t intend-- well. I did. But not anymore.”

“Yeah, yeah. I had worse, don’t trouble yourself--” Caleb almost pulls away, irritated, but his rump feels pinned to the earth with weariness and it’s too much bother to get up. It ain’t that Caleb is exhausted - they’ve a lot further to go before he hits that point. But he’s made it this far by being as lazy as a cat, so he sits there and lets Pyrrhus fuss over him, leaning his temple against the other man’s knee. 

“I broke it, I ought to clean it up.” Pyrrhus is gentle but firm, cleaning the blood off Caleb’s face with a damp cloth. His attention was fatherly more than anything else, a man used to dealing with the scrapes of small children than patching up partners. The touch of Pyrrhus’ fingers tingled with power. 

“Oh come on, man, bitty cut like that an’ you’re wasting magic on it? When we got gods-know-what t’deal with in the mornin’?” Now Caleb is annoyed; he jerked away from Pyrrhus’ grip. 

“I’ve got plenty to spare,” the Zenith said. He slid aside the collar of his tunic, tapped a finger against the gold embedded in his skin from shoulder to shoulder. “This is my line home; connects me straight to the manses I care for on the Sacred Mount. Whatever power I use on you I will get back in an hour or less. So let me. As you said, we don’t know what we’re facing tomorrow.” 

“A’ight, fine.” Caleb settled back, let the man finish with ill-grace. The Zenith smeared something over his brow and stuck on a thin bandage, keeping the edges of the cut together while it healed. He noted, while the man worked, the essence seeping down and soothing more than that bitty cut - aches and bruises all over faded down to nothing. “...Thanks, Pyr. Y’ain’t so bad.”

Pyrrhus huffed a breath and smacked Caleb lightly on the back of the head. “Hand me the food, would you? I’m starved.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spot the Overwatch reference, get a cookie.


	10. Chapter 10

_ Pyrrhus _

 

They broke camp quickly and efficiently just before dawn, striking out following Caleb’s map and the fading stars overhead. As promised, as soon as the sun broke the horizon, the prayer strips braided into their horses’ manes began to smoke like incense, and the landscape shifted subtly around them.

“You ever traveled this way afore?” Caleb asked as they moved out, his hat jammed firmly down on his head and a stem of hay between his teeth. He scowled at the not-quite right surroundings. 

“Not exactly.” Pyrrhus sat straight in the saddle, feeling more loose than he had in months. He felt the hint of a smile ghosting his lips, though what he had to smile about he couldn’t fathom. Even Rain seemed to sense it, or the effects of Caiden’s power - the grey picked up his hooves with verve. “With a Journeys sidereal - yes. Under this particular magic? No.”  

“I don’t like it.” Caleb grunted, then shook himself like a wet dog, back to smiles and an open face. “But I guess I ain’t one t’complain when it’s so hell-fired con-veen-yent.”

“That it is,” Pyrrhus agreed. There was still a subject he needed to speak to the other man about, but he was loathe to broach it and drag down the lightness of the dawn. Why fighting a man - a more-or-less innocent one, at that - had removed a weight from him he had no idea, but it hinted at something he didn’t like. Better to follow the topic at hand. “Have you ever traveled by airship?”

“Fah, I wish. How godsdamned expensive is that? Most like y’can’t even take yer horse on on o’them.” Dirt snorted protest on cue as Caleb reached a hand down and thumped his mount affectionately on the shoulder. The conversation wandered from there to other novel experiences, shared or not, the differences between Caleb’s southern life and Pyrrhus’ privileged Isle upbringing.

The trail they followed, hastened by Sidereal magic, brought them to a dry creekbed around noon. Caleb swung down and pulled a pair of short shovels from the packs hanging over Dirt’s rump. He tossed one to Pyrrhus and sauntered over to the bed, inspecting it. 

“What’s this for?” Pyrrhus followed, watching while Caleb kicked at the sand in several spots. 

“Horses need a drink. There’s usually water flowin’ underneath spots like this, jus’ gotta make a bit of a hole…” He dug his shovel in and turned over a mound of sand; sure enough there was darker colored earth underneath and the sparkle of gathering moisture down at the bottom. “...and let the water seep in. Gimme a hand--” 

The two of them set to digging a hole large enough for the water their mounts required. Halfway through, Pyrrhus paused and swiped at his forehead. “Caleb, may I ask you a question?... About the quickburn.” 

“Sure, pal,” Caleb said, not looking up. He checked the depth of the water seeping in and tossed another shovelful of dirt to the side. “Shoot.”

“How do you know what’s… going to set you off? Is it always ah, hmm… as intense, as what occurred the other day?” He neatened the edges of the hole and dug down deep for another scoop.

“Naw. Well - I mean, it’s been diff’rent for every soul I’ve met what’s been burned, but for the most part, the vivid ain’-t-at-home-no-more kind's not too common. But for the most part, what I seen - anything that reminds ya of what burned ya in the first place can spark ya.” 

“Anything? As in, sights, sounds, smells --”

“Sure. Some things y’wouldn’t even reckon on, too. Knew a fella couldn’t look at water in a horse trough, on account of how the sunlight hit it.” Caleb leaned on the handle of his shovel, adjusted the brim of his hat and looked Pyrrhus over. “Were I a bettin’ man, - and I ain't - I’d figure on one of yer sparks bein’ touched from behind, or anywhere from outta your sight. Stuff round your wrists, too.”

Pyrrhus opened his mouth to reply, thought instead of some of the events of the last year where just such things had brought out an entirely disproportionate response. “I think you’re right. But - it won’t be so bad all the time?”

“I ain’t sure, friend.” Caleb shrugged, bent to shovel out more dirt. “Y’might burn that way for the rest o’ your life, or it might go down to just a panicky feel fer no reason. Errybody’s diff’rent.”

“What about you? Do you mind--?” 

“Don’ mind.” Caleb quirked a smile, moved the cigarette he’d been holding to the other side of his mouth and patted down his pockets for a little click fire-starter. He lit it with a flick and sucked on the cigarette for a moment, getting it well caught. “Y’know, I love these things, despite how nasty they are. They help, somedays. Used t’do terrible things to my wind… but ever since the Sun came down, that don’t seem t’be a problem.”

He blew out a plume of blue smoke to the side. “Most times, mine aren’t so bad nowadays. Well, they ain’t incapacitatin’ leastaways. I’ll freeze up for a bit, feel like I’m choking. Y’know when them shadowlands passed over, an’ y’feel like there’s no hope left in the world? Feel like that, but worse - like I oughta lay down right there an’ die. Leaves a bad taste in my head, ya know?” 

“As for the sparks? Don’ know all of ‘em, doubt I ever will, but the big ones, lessee.” He blew out another swirl, shook himself all over. “Guh, get the jeebies just thinkin’ bout ‘em.”

“Forget I asked then,” Pyrrhus said. The hole seemed large enough now, and water was starting to creep further in and fill it. He climbed out, saying a quick prayer to both Caleb’s spring-goddess Rivela and his own Danaa’d under his breath. 

“Naw, it’s fine. I’m saucin’ you with it, ain’t I, goose? ...Bones snappin’ is the big one, or anything that sounds near enough. Got twitchy over a branch poppin’ in a fire, once.”  He huffed a laugh, stuck the cigarette firmly between his teeth and accepted the shovel back. Pyrrhus took up Rain's lead and brought the horse down to the water. “Bruises on a gal’s face, or bad screamin’.... Those mostly jus’ make me see red, though. Can’t abide slavers. Mmm - ah. An’ a particular day in Resplendent Fire. Try not t’do anything important that week. There’s more, but they’re bitty ones, and they don’t bother me so much no more.”

Pyrrhus leaned over Rain’s withers as the horse investigated the water, watching the other man carefully. “Thank you. For sharing. I do really appreciate it.”

“Sure. Just so as you know, you ain’t the only one.” Caleb gave him a dazzling smile and tipped his hat.

The horses drank and they headed out again, sipping judiciously from their own canteens.  There was a wind coming down off the Western mountains, which while not exactly pleasant, at least alleviated some of the crushing heat of early afternoon. Pyrrhus sweated right through his tunics in minutes, and he could not figure out how Caleb could stand all the layers he wore - shirt, vest, and longcoat. 

He tucked all the things about sparks, things which set off those memories, everything that Caleb had said on the subject away in a corner of his mind. It would need further contemplation, the kind that Pyrrhus didn't really wish to do on horseback. 

He reasoned quickburn is a poison, based on Caleb’s descriptions. Or a disease, or injury. Not a flaw, not a fault in his own makeup, something to blame himself for - it is an inflicted, external condition. Pyrrhus knew enough about healing to recognize that. Diseases -those you fight them off with rest and food and the right course of medicine. And some poisons, you harden yourself against them by repeated small doses.  Just the thing Caleb encouraged by speaking of it, over and over. It made more sense looking at it from that perspective, though understanding didn’t bring any more ease or inclination to the act of sharing. His throat tightened at the thought and he swallowed, hard. 

“Have I told you about Ashen Memory?” Pyrrhus asked instead. Tangential, perhaps, but something he could speak of without that physiological response. It would intersect the event, and it may be an oblique angle would work better. 

“Don’t think y’have. What is it?” 

“Not what -- who.” 

Pyrrhus started at the end - the last he’d heard of Ash, of Madeus, of whatever name the poor soul Mistress had turned to her own ends had claimed - he’d set out with the Lunar called Joy to discover some way to atone for his own darkness. The story led to the beginning of the fight that had ended in Pyrrhus’ capture, and Ash’s desire for ...something other than the life of a Deathknight. 

Repeating the narrative from a slightly different perspective did seem to help, and Caleb, unused to dealing with the Underworld’s champions, asked intelligent questions. It gave Pyrrhus a chance to expound on the lore he knew of them (precious little in comparison to his Circlemate Akaris, but enough) and slip into his teaching manner, in which all was ever so slightly set at a distance. 

The conversation continued well into the afternoon, flowing to other, easier topics as they rode. Pyrrhus was describing his family’s estate and vineyards in Juche, inviting Caleb to visit somewhere when he wanted to see more than just red dirt, when he sensed the change in the atmosphere. The horses felt the difference too, shuddering their skins. 

Pyrrhus pulled Rain to a stop, guiding the horse into a tight circle. “Caleb, did you feel that?” 

“Naw, what’s the matter?” Caleb reined Dirt in, halting beside the grey. 

“I’m.. not sure. How far are we from Curesprings?” Pyrrhus slid down from the saddle and passed Rain’s lead to the other Solar, walking back the way they’d come slowly. 

Caleb drew the map from under his vest and flattened it out over the saddlebow, checking landmarks and angles against the glyphs on the paper. The smoke of the prayer strips had diminished significantly, and only smoldered faintly in the last lines of the script. “Couple of miles. Less'n an hour, now.”

There it was - Pyrrhus crossed an invisible line in the earth and immediately felt the difference as something which had been missing settled across his shoulders, a mantle of barely-felt power. He stepped back, towards Caleb and Curesprings, and the mantle vanished. It was light and cool on the wrong side of that line, like a removing a heavy tunic or sliding out from beneath blankets on an autumn morning. It didn’t feel wrong, yet -- but --

Pyrrhus willed his castemark to glitter; felt the essence move along its channels beneath his skin, felt the drain. Only a weak drip of power from his connected manses replenished the loss instead of the steady stream it usually was. He crossed the invisible barrier several more times to confirm, finally stopping directly on the boundary. 

“This is the border… of something. It doesn’t… quite… feel like a Shadowland, but there’s something inhibiting power here.”

Caleb nudged Dirt forward, they circled Pyrrhus lazily several times as the gunslinger turned his attention inwards, to his own flows of chi. “Oh! Aye, I can feel it now. Ain’t much to it, is there? I wouldn’tve noticed that barrin’ your pointin’ it out.”

Pyrrhus took the grey back and mounted. Caleb took the lead again. “So far out from the town… that’s worrying. That’s a lot of Creation to affect. Shall we go have a look?” 


	11. Chapter 11

_Caleb_

 

The closer they got, the more Caleb could tell something was downright unnatural about the area. Well, he’d known as soon as Pyrrhus told him, walked across that border himself a few times, but now - now he could smell it. 

Brimstone and acid and smoke. 

Caleb didn’t have to look to know the sky would be smeared over with green; he could feel it in the growing itch between his shoulderblades. The light casting shadows from his left was thin and brownish, all the normal bloody reds and oranges of sunset tinged by that sickly emerald color. “I know this flavor o’ bad, Pyrrhus. This is Malfean.”

“Malfean. Ri shao gou shi bing.” Pyrrhus said a phrase that Caleb didn’t understand, but by the tone in which the man said it he was pretty sure it was something carrying the same feeling as any one of Caleb’s many swears. 

“Y’can say that again.” Caleb nudged Dirt into a lope - out here, the terrain was open and flat, rising out to the east into dunes and further west into more canyons and foothills. Pyrrhus and Rain were right behind him. Curesprings resolved on the horizon, a dark low-slung silhouette of buildings dominated by an obelisk-topped rise at the center. The shapes resolved into detail after a few moments - and he could see the crazed lines traced all through the red jade pillar.

Then the dread hit. 

He knew it was outside, wasn’t himself feeling it so much as the feeling having him, the way that impending doom hit him like a ton of bricks in his belly, drawing bile and nausea into his throat. His doom was a choking smothering thing in the chest, legacy of a rope, a horse, and too many cigarettes. He spat the stuff out into the sand, heard Pyrrhus behind him doing something similar, and unsettled but determined, the two rode into town. 

“Ain’t such a mystery now why nobody’d heard of things comin’ from Curesprings this season,” Caleb commented as they passed the first outbuildings. “A body’d hit that doom and turn right back t’other way, if his horse didn’t throw him first.” 

“Rain is certainly unhappy,” Pyrrhus said. The grey was skitterier more than usual, jumping at every shadow, but Pyrrhus was holding him firm. Dirt wasn’t in the best of moods either, but the stallion got ornery when he was upset, and his ears were glued flat to his skull. 

“I’m not ‘zactly cheered m’self,” Caleb said. “Whoa -- Hey there!”

A man had come out of a building up ahead, moving warily across the hard-packed road to the next. Caleb spurred Dirt forward into a trot, calling out.  He froze suspiciously, a hand on the porch railing of the next building. “Good evenin’, mister! Might you be so kind as t’point us in the direction o’ the Inn? Or somewheres me an’ m’partner here can get somethin’ in the way of a hot meal an’ a place t’sleep.” 

“You folk are the first we had through here in near a week. The inn, hmm? The Manse there used to be the place to go, but. Not sure you want to head there now, Mister.” He gestured up the street towards the obelisk.

“An’ why’d that be, sir?” Caleb swung a leg over and slid down to hold a proper conversation. He grabbed Dirt’s reins just beneath the horse’s chin to keep him in check; wouldn’t do for the fellow to take a chunk out of a local. Once he had the stallion secured he tipped his hat back and favored the fellow with a smile; as sincere and don’t-worry-you-can-trust-me a smile as he could manage.

“It’s a story a bit in the telling. The place’s been cursed.” He glanced between the two of them and hooked a thumb in his pocket. “C’mon back with me. We’ll talk. If you got coin or barter, I reckon I can find you summat t’eat too.” 

“I’m sorry, friend, but - is there time? Are there - is there immediate danger to anyone?” Pyrrhus asked. 

“No. Not so far’s I know, at least. The screamin’ stopped yesterday.”

Pyrrhus glanced at Caleb as he dismounted. Caleb shrugged and they followed the man along the side of the building, further into the depths of the village. He did, however, make a point of unpacking the bandolier of ammunition and slinging Medicine Man over his shoulder after they’d arrived and tied the horses to the hitching posts. 

The fellow, by the name of Sesen, sat them down round his little kitchen table and fed them flatbread and hummus, grilled vegtables and hardboiled eggs in slices. And while they ate (gratefully, for which Caleb traded a tiny chip of blue crystal with an antelope petroglyph etched onto one side), Sesen told them the story of the Manse. 

Seems, a few years back, a fellow’d come through and gifted the town with a scythe. They might’ve scoffed at him a bit, but he said it were a magic scythe, imbued with sorceries and the like so that their harvests would be bountiful and the earth roundabouts more fertile than it ought. Well, they noticed after the last reaping the blade’d been getting a bit green, like copper, and brought it to Sesen. He being the best blacksmith in town. And that’d been a few days ago.

Sesen couldn’t do much for it, so they’d brought it into the Manse. Round about then’s when all the chaos happened. A green lightning bolt had struck the obelisk in the center of the manse, the gates had slammed shut, and the heavy blanket of cloud and dread had settled over the town. 

Caleb thanked him for the food and the story and sauntered outside for a smoke. Pyrrhus joined him just as the flicker of fire lit the inside of his palm and caught on the cigarette. They were both two violet shadows leaning against the mudbrick house. Caleb flicked yellow sunfire from the tips of his fingers. 

“We have to go in there.”

“Ee-yeah.” Caleb took a long draw and let it out through his nose, blowing like a steam dragon. “I said I knew it, didn’t I? Knew it was Malfean. Well - think I know who’s work it’s like to be, too.” 

Pyrrhus moved off a little ways, down to the horses, pulled his longcoat from his packs and shrugged it on as the night got cool, much faster than it ought. As he was fastening it down the right side, he prompted Caleb. “Who’s work?”

“Zalikar. I don’t know what kind of fella he is; well, was - me’ an my posse killed him year or so ago. He’s definitely dead; put a bullet between his eyes m’self. But he’s left his toys all over the South an’ they keep gettin’ folk into trouble.” Caleb took another draw and tapped the ash off the end. “This kinda stuff’s his bread an’ butter. Looks like to help folk, then it does somethin’ mean.” 

“Do you know how to stop it?”

Caleb shook his head in the negative. “Ya tired?”

“Not anymore. Let us deal with… that.”


	12. Chapter 12

_Pyrrhus_

The doors to the Manse complex were heavy ironwood bound with red jade and bronze. They’d paced the exterior, looking for other ways within, but the sparking threat of essence vents and fire had brought them back to the only obvious portal.

“Welp,” Caleb had said, drawing out a set of thin metal strips wrapped in suede from inside his boot. “Ain’t never met a lock I couldn’t get open somehow. Gimme a bit.”

So now Pyrrhus stood guard while Caleb knelt at the door, only the light from the Caste mark on his forehead illuminating his work. He swallowed down spit and bile around the heavy lump in his throat and held his stone-face by sheer will. The same discordant feeling, of being just that bit off-step, was hovering over his shoulders. He couldn’t afford it. There were more lives at stake; a town, prisoners or hostages within perhaps, their own. He folded his arms across his chest, tucking fingers threatening to tremble beneath.

“Gorram piece o’ golden age lo suh-- Open up, will ya?” Caleb yanked his picks from the lock with rather more force than was required and laid his open palm on the bronze plate instead. His caste mark flared, light pulsed from beneath his skin, and the lock clicked open in terrified haste.

Caleb hummed deep in his chest, satisfied, and set his shoulder to the gate. Pyrrhus lent his strength to the task and with a rasping grind, it opened.  The road in led straight up to the obelisk; a spire of red jade four or five times as tall as they were. There was script at the bottom, inlaid in orichalcum and clearly dating back to the first age.

But the top third…

Cracks in the metal, as though it had been frozen to brittleness and struck, snaked down from the point of the spire. Sullen poisonous green light oozed from their depths, and the tang of acid drifted down.

The gate creaked closed again behind them as they stepped through. Both of them spun at the sound, but no beings were in evidence the cause. Pyrrhus narrowed his eyes, calling up essence in the patterns Akaris had taught him to see the unseen, but nothing showed to his enhanced senses.  Caleb cursed.

“Wouldn’t be a proper Southern ghost story without shit like that happenin’,” the gunslinger said.

Pyrrhus did not answer, gaze sweeping the inner courtyard and complex before the effects of his essence-channeling faded away. There was nothing immediately obvious; nothing dematerialized was waiting for them where he could see them. “Where are the people?”

“Dead, I expect. Ghosts, waiting for us somewheres.”

Pyrrhus stepped to the side, calling upon more essence and will. His Arbiter armor, formed in the moments of his Second Breath, materialized around him in scale armor wrought of power and virtue, as closely fitted as another robe. The swords formed as well, resting at his hips in readiness. “If this were of the Underworld, then ghosts I would believe. But if it is Malfean, as you say. That is not their methods.”

Caleb only grunted agreement and took the steps two at a time up to the base of the obelisk. Pyrrhus followed more cautiously, a hand on the hilt of his right sword, his gaze sweeping paranoid arcs across the courtyard. The top of the obelisk’s rise was paved in black sandstone, and pools of bubbling liquid, deep and dark with only ripples lit by green light above and Caleb’s caste mark showing their edges. Steam hung low over the pools, making everything at knee height or below vanish into green and gold limned cloud.

Pyrrhus knelt by one, dipping his armored fingers into the pool. Water. Only water - hot, mineral-rich and smelling faintly of metal with every bubble of air that escaped, but only water. Whatever had infected this place had not yet corrupted the water.  

“Oh, new guessstsss,” hissed a voice. It was a blend of broken harmonies, as though many people spoke at once but not - quite - together. Nothing like Mistress’ regal husky tones or the nasal whine of her daughter deathknights, a fact for which Pyrrhus was inordinately relieved.

Caleb whirled, his guns already out of their holsters, but there was no source to the sound and nothing to shoot. Pyrrhus retreated, instinctively putting his back to Caleb’s, his swords flickering into his hands and ready.

“Pleassse be at eassse, friendsss. I’ll be with you sssshortly.”

“Reckon that ain’t ominous or nothin’,” Caleb murmured, stuffing his guns back into the holsters buckled to each hip with a flip and a spin. “Any experience in manse-breaking, friend?”

“Not really.” That had been Gaelen’s specialty. Pyrrhus and the rest had followed behind, ready to handle whatever the manses’ defense systems had spit out in the way of enemies, but Gaelen had navigated their depths, disarmed their traps, found their hearthrooms.

“Right, then. Learning on the job! Jus’ keep your eyes open.” Caleb jammed his hat down further and strode back down the stairs. He turned left between the outer walls and the buildings that lined it with Pyrrhus right behind.

Much like Pyrrhus’ manse on the Mount, this one was a complex of buildings instead of the usual single massive structure. It was arranged around a spoke-and-hub configuration, with the obelisk and the pools forming the hub. The buildings were smooth stone, dark brown-red shadows beneath the glow of Caleb’s mark and Pyrrhus’ armor, almost purple in the shadows cast by the green glow of the top of the obelisk.

“I suppose the question of whether or not something is here has been answered,” Pyrrhus said as they walked, carefully scanning the spaces between buildings.

“Aye. An’ if it’s Zalikar’s work, I doubt very much that it’s anything worse than what a talented mortal could brew up. Man wasn’t much for brute force.” Caleb stopped before a window set into the building and motioned Pyrrhus forward to peer inside. The light on his face was dimming, but not so much that he wasn’t still an easy target in the dark.

“No one,” Pyrrhus reported, glancing inside from the frame with as minimal exposure as he could manage.. They moved on to the next, and the next with no signs of life of any kind. He had not realized it, but there had been such out in the desert nights and on the trail: the tracks of snakes, lizards, small animals, the calls of birds and insects within the scrub, once the sight of a herd of oryx in the distance, which Caleb had pointed out to him. Here there was nothing but eerie silence. Even the bubbling of the pools was muted.

They stepped into the shadow of one of the spoke buildings - more like a long covered walk than anything - and something exploded out from under Pyrrhus’ foot with a keening scream.

His swords were in his hands and he whirled to strike -

BANG -

\- only for the blades to encounter nothing but air and drifting feathers. The tattered remains of some kind of pheasant lay several feet away, a lighter patch of shadow against the dark stone.

“Glad t’see I’m faster’n’you at something,” Caleb laughed, and only then did Pyrrhus notice the gun in his hand, hovering in front of his hip. The tip was glowing slightly from the heat and smoking, with Caleb’s other hand on the hammer, cocking it back for a second shot. “An’ we’re both twitchy on trigger.”

“Swords do not have triggers,” Pyrrhus corrected automatically, the same flippant tone he used for Gaelen’s absurdities, but he was already moving toward the slain creature. The swords faded back to his hips, ready to be called to hand once more, as he knelt. It seemed an ordinary, if unlucky, creature.

“Dammit, Pyr, just suck all the fun out o’ everything, why doncha,” Caleb was grumbling, but he put the gun away and ambled on over. Slightly less paranoid, the pair continued their search of the upper buildings. It was frustrating and slow, with no useful results. Everything was empty, with only some misplaced furniture and abandoned plates and cups to show anyone had been there recently.

“Where is the hearthroom?” Pyrrhus murmured. All the buildings clustered about the rim of this manse complex looked identical to him - single and double-story sandstone structures with entirely mundane doors and windows - with no sign of anything different to mark where the heart lay. “If I were to take such a place as this, that is likely where I would be should invaders threaten. Where the power is.”

Caleb paused, frowned, stomped the ground enough to make his spurs jangle. It was clear he’d thought of something, and his head cocked as he listened, feeling about with his foot across the sand-strewn path.

Something went crunch beneath Caleb’s boot.

“Oh. Shit,” he said very, very quietly, freezing in place.

“What?” Pyrrhus asked, his back to the gunslinger’s.

“Uh... Remember, what I tol’ ya about the things that spark me?” Caleb said. His voice had acquired a shake though the rest of him was rock still.

“Caleb?” Pyrrhus dropped his guard stance and turned to his ally, setting a hand on the other’s shoulder. “Are you-- what do you need?”

“Jus’... jus’ gimme a moment. I don’ go ‘way like you did, but… shiiiit…” Caleb took three steps sideways, half-collapsing against the smooth stone wall of the building. He hooked a hand into the collar of his shirt and pulled down so hard the buttons creaked. His breathing grew fast and ragged, panicky, and his eyes fixed on the dead grass at his feet, growing between the cobblestones at the base of the building. “Iiii am jus’ gonna talk at you fer a bit, ok? Right. I mean, I jus’ need to not pay attention to what’s in my head or I’mma make it worse…”

Caleb kept talking quietly, nothing of import, just to hear his own voice. His free hand flailed about for a moment before Pyrrhus intercepted, gripping the other man’s elbow. Caleb’s hand closed on Pyr’s arm in return, squeezing to steady himself. When the flow of words stopped but Caleb hadn’t moved, Pyrrhus took up the thread instead, reciting by rote the first thing that came to mind. Which was, in this case, some of the first sutras of the Immaculate Texts. His attention was outward, waiting for the inevitable threat to pounce on the weak moment.

“Pyrrhus,” Caleb said a few moments later, his fingers iron around Pyrrhus’ arm. “Could ya mebbe not preach on what devils them sun-touched are, about now? Since, y’know, we _are_ sun-touched devils?”

“Ah. My apologies. Memorized that a long time ago.” He stopped, thought for a moment, switched to reciting the relevant passages in Old Realm from his ancestor’s treatises.

“Don’t know if that’s better or worse, on account of I’ve no idea what you’re sayin’,” Caleb huffed, straightening slowly. He hadn’t let go of Pyr’s arm.

“Better, trust me,” Pyrrhus replied, switching to back Riverspeak, their common language. “Are you alright?”

“Aye.” Caleb aimed a kick at an otherwise unremarkable piece of path. Shards of damp terracotta roof tile which had lain obscured by dirt shot out and impacted the side of another building. Most shattered or ricocheted into the dark, but a few of the tile shards stuck point first into a chink in the wall by the force of the kick. Caleb set a hand to his side, reassuring himself of the weight of his guns slung from his hip and shook himself all over. “Well, I ain’t good, but I’m better. Hellfires, I hate when tha’ happens.”


	13. Chapter 13

_Caleb_

 

Caleb shook himself all over, as much against the itch under his skin as to settle coat and clothing into place again. The metal on him rattled, from spurs to harness buckles, soft clinks and thumps. But it made the guns hang low and heavy and solid against his leg, another anchor back to now, along with the other man’s hand locked around his elbow, just as his was in return. There was still a darkness hanging over his thoughts, and there would be for a time yet, but at least it wasn’t smothering him at the moment.

No, it was just raining deprecations and invective down into the midst of his mind (and would be for a time yet). The usual dark little voices biting at his confidence. So, also as usual, Caleb ignored it by opening his mouth instead and let go of Pyr’s arm.  “I was feelin’ round for a hollow sound. Occurred to me that there ain’t more’n a few of these ancient places that don’ have underground portions. Like t’ be something that’ll let us down, somewhere.”

 _You shoulda known that from the start,_ growled that darkness. _An’ you’re supposed to be the expert here. How many ruins you raided with the Firecat an th’ Lioness? Fah. Gonna get the both of you killed, stupid._

 _Fuck off,_ Caleb told it firmly, his knuckles tightening on the grip of the gun.

Pyrrhus’ face glittered back at him beneath the fading light of his sunsmark, that stone-face of his etched with concern. Spoke well of the man that even through his own pain he could spare thought for Caleb’s. Pyrrhus nodded and let go his arm with a final squeeze. “A hidden staircase, then? I know enough to recognize that such places are not built by accident; they cannot, to channel such energies. So there will be architectural clues as to where such a staircase might be.”

“Or - an’ this is gonna hurt, but it'll be quicker -” Caleb stalked to the middle of the complex. With a flicker of will and essence, he sharpened his senses:  he could hear Pyrrhus’ quick heartbeat from across the yard, even the last snaps of the pheasant’s nerves. Could feel the origin of the air across his face and every grain in the wood of the pistol’s grip through his fingertips. Could see like the place was lit at noon, and every thread in the silk of his friend’s scarlet sash. Oh, what he had planned was going to cause a whole world of ouch.

_Gonna hurt a lot. But you deserve it, doncha. Pain’s all you’re worth._

“Caleb?” Pyrrhus called. “What are-” Caleb could hear the roughness still lingering in the man’s throat; he must have had a hell of a voice once.  

Caleb dropped to one knee and flattened his palm against the dark sandstone rock of the yard, flung the other with the pistol up at the obelisk, and screwing his eyes shut: pulled the trigger.

The crack of the shot was nearly deafening. The booming reverberation as the obelisk rang beneath the impact of the bullet went past nearly and into definitely as everything faded  into whining, ringing silence. The burst of pain in his ears pierced straight down deep into his skull and lingered in his jawbone. He guessed by the warm sensation trickling down his neck that his ears had started bleeding.

But beneath his open palm the echoes of the shot, amplified and vibrating throughout the ground, did exactly what he hoped it would. He could feel it, the chambers below ground, the mess of channels carrying water, restlessly shifting living things, and there, on the west side, the jagged echoes of a staircase worked into a hearth facade within a building.

The echoes rang and rang and faded out each time, but he’d gotten what he needed. He felt running footsteps and whirled, opening eyes dazzled by the sudden light but it was only Pyrrhus skidding to a stop in front of him. He was saying something but Caleb heard nothing but whining silence.

Caleb gave him a lopsided grin and pointed to his head. “Sorry, pal, can’t hear you,” he said (he thought he said, probably too loudly). “‘Fraid I messed ‘em up good. But I know where t’go now.”

Pyrrhus smiled and shook his head. He stepped close, pressed his forehead to Caleb’s and spoke. Caleb could feel the vibrations of the man’s words through his skull and laughed at it. _“That was a bit overdramatic.”_

Pyrrhus stepped back but left his hands on Caleb’s head, resting lightly over his ears - they went noon-day burning hot and Caleb could clearly see the reflection in Pyr’s eyes of the glow off his skin. There was a soft pop and sound flooded into his ears again, thumping and painful. Caleb tried to wince away but Pyrrhus held his head firm.

_Healing’s wasted on you, crowbait._

“Can you hear now?” Pyrrhus said a moment later, taking his hands away as the glow faded.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can. Thanks.” Caleb resisted the urge to scrub at his jaw.  The man sounded like he was speaking through several stone walls, but there was sound again. “C’mon.”

\---

Two openings yawned in the chamber the staircase had led them to, each with hallways diverging in opposite directions. There was light down here not from the sunburst on his forehead (fading fast anyways), but it was dim and flickering orange. Steam from the hot springs hung in the air and clung to their skin and clothing.

“Ugh, ain’t that wonderful,” Caleb commented, plucking his shirt away from his chest. “It’s not natural, water bein’ so… egh. Like this.”

“Caleb.” Pyrrhus had stalked forward, checking down both passageways and the water that trickled down the walls to puddle in the center of the hallways. “Focus.”

“What’ve we got, pal?”

“If I had to guess: Labyrinth. Both these make sharp turns but there’s enough echo that I think they keep going much further.”

Caleb grunted agreement and took the lead, trailing one hand along the damp wall, the other tight-knuckled around the grip of his pistol. He briefly considered pulling Medicine Man from the sling across his back, but the long rifle would like as not be useless in the confines of the maze. Pyrrhus was in step behind him, though he couldn’t hear him he felt the man’s presence like a fire at his back. “How’s your sense of direction?”

“Not good,” Pyrrhus said, chagrin filling in the rough spots in his voice. “Thankfully, we won’t need it - just logic and patience.”

“Let’s hope whatever Zalikar left us gives us tha’ kinda time.”

They followed the passageways, keeping always to the left, as they followed the turns and twists deliberately designed to confuse. Pyrrhus weren’t wrong, though - the left-hand rule worked, if slowly, and was a damn sight better than wandering about aimlessly. They couldn’t afford any more aimless.  

“I sssseee you’ve made it farrr,” hissed that same voice from earlier, echoing down the passageways. It was quiet and muffled, but Caleb still understood it, felt the malevolence underlying. He whirled, put his back against the wall and kept his hands ready on his guns; beside him Pyrrhus faced back the way they’d come, his essence-blades in his grip. “I cannot join you yet, but pleasssee, enjoy the company of my friendsss.”

The voice died out in a rattling whisper.

“The blazes is that supposed to mean?” Caleb said, shoving away from the wall. His ear twinged down into his jaw and he winced, scrubbing at it with a hunched shoulder.

“I imagine we’ll find out.”

“Gods above, I hate this creepy shit.”

Pyrrhus just hummed in response, head up as they went further in.

The voice did not speak again.

They were left in dripping silence long enough for Caleb to start getting twitchy again before the labyrinth opened slightly. The passageway went from being barely wide enough for one to pass into a taller, wider stretch where three or four might walk together.  

Standing in the middle of the wider stretch was a man. He wore the pale loose-cut cotton robes and trousers that most in the South sported, though his were stained and dirty, with lines of damp clearly visible in the ambient orange flickering light.

“Hey! Hey fella - y’alright? We’re here t’help--”

The man did not respond except to turn blank eyes on them, staring, with no trace of sense or soul behind him. Caleb swallowed, the twinge in his ears reminding him to go canny, but he only paused a moment before he quickened his step to get to the man.

“No, wait--” Pyrrhus said, almost getting a hand on Caleb’s sleeve. “I’ve seen--”

“Fella?”

As soon as Caleb got within arm’s reach, there was an explosion of movement. He found himself slammed into the wall, the fella’s arm across his chest, crushing him back into the damp stone. “Hey, now --”

Caleb tried to shake him off, shove him back, but the man just held like a ton of stone, still with the same blankeyed stare. “Hey, man, whaddya doin’? Lemme go, we’re trynna help --”

The stone shifted and gave behind his back; Caleb broke off with a startled yelp. “Pyrrhus!”

The other Solar was already there, an arm around the blank-eyed man’s throat and dragging him back, The man tried to get a grip on Pyrrhus with a free hand, to shove him into the wall as well. Pyrrhus grabbed, twisted, and the man ended up flat on the ground, a victim of his own momentum.

“Hellfires,” Caleb cursed, scrambling away from the wall. His head felt suddenly cooler and he scrubbed a hand through his hair to realize his hat was missing - Caleb turned and snatched it from the wall. In the stone was a perfect Caleb-shaped impression, as though it were soft clay not hard sandstone. “Lookit that. Sheee-it.”

Pyrrhus set the now unconscious fellow against the wall and stood back with Caleb. “I have seen this before. I think - he must be possessed. It is likely safe to say so will be anyone else we encounter until we find this scythe.”

“Folk possessed. An’ a Manse what wants to eat us.”

“That I have not seen.”

“Me either, friend.” Caleb watched, tense and ready to yank the other Solar back, as Pyrrhus traced the edges of the Caleb-impression. The stone did not grate or give again but Caleb stayed warily away from it.

“Would it have killed, or just transport one elsewhere, I wonder,” Pyrrhus murmured, almost too quiet for Caleb’s damaged hearing to make out. He, too, stepped away from the stone with a hand on the hilt of his essence-swords, hanging unused still at his belt.

“I’m not of a mind to find out. Let’s keep going. Faster we find the scythe, faster we can get out of here.” Caleb shook his coat straight, dislodging crumbs of red stone in every direction.


	14. Chapter 14

_ Pyrrhus _

 

They kept on. Pyrrhus took the lead now, by silent agreement that his martial style was better suited to disabling without injuring unduly any further possessed villagers. He didn’t mention - and neither did Caleb, which led him to think the other man hadn’t noticed, preoccupied with the pain still bothering his ears - that he’d seen the last man silently swallowed by the stone walls as they’d left the area.  Pyrrhus took the display for what it was, a warning, and nodded at the walls. He would not forget. 

Caleb’s spurs and gunbelt clinked behind him, softly now with Caleb’s hand wrapped around the grips. He hadn’t let go since the flare-up, and Pyrrhus wondered if such a talisman would help anchor him as they obviously did for the other Solar. As had that stone Caleb had dropped into his own hands during his flare up… had that only been yesterday?

Pyrrhus had once worn the weight of red jade scale like a second skin, wore a pair of swords at his hip with little note of their presence despite being scholar-born, not martial. Though he trusted completely in the protection of the essence-crafted trappings of his Arbiter path, it was substanceless and without mass. It was easy to forget he even wore it if not for the corner of his mind dedicated to maintaining its essence. Now, though… the physical weight of armor might be a welcome burden. He made a mental note to look into acquiring another set. 

A handful of turns later, the labyrinth opened again. Three blank-eyed villagers waited for them - a pair of women and a young man barely out of his teens. Their clothes were even more ragged than the last man’s. Pyrrhus paused just where the corridor widened, watching the villagers warily. They stared but did not approach, grouped in the middle of the small chamber. 

“I would prefer not to have another altercation,” Pyrrhus said as Caleb leaned around him to look. “Perhaps we can walk past them without being grabbed?”

“Worth a shot, pal,” Caleb said. He slung an arm over Pyrrhus’ shoulder, shaking his head at the grouping.  “They ain’t leavin’ us a lotta room, there, though.”

“If it can be done, I believe we owe it to these unfortunates to try.” Pyrrhus stepped out from under Caleb’s arm, keeping to the right hand side of the chamber, almost pressed against the unreliable wall. The villagers watched, unmoving, but did not interfere. He turned to slide past the last woman, warily. He wasn’t quite ready to believe they would let the two Solars pass, though as always, he hoped. 

And he was right.

Caleb was following in Pyrrhus’ footsteps; being slighter, he was keeping a smaller profile against the stone. It didn’t help. 

The atmosphere changed in a heartbeat; the young man and last woman rushed Pyrrhus, trying with supernatural strength to shove him into the wall. The first tried the same on Caleb. Trusting in his companion’s competence, Pyrrhus focused on his own assailants. 

He sidestepped the woman’s grab and caught the young man by the elbow, yanking him into overbalancing and sending him stumbling into the wall. Neither of them made a sound, which was unsettling, especially against the backdrop of chatter that Caleb had started up the second the fight had begun. 

Pyrrhus didn’t make a sound either, aside from a grunt of concentration. Not effort, because fighting them was not particularly difficult - only doing so without causing them lasting harm was requiring thought. Concern over the health of his opponents had not been a worry since he stopped teaching. 

The woman recovered and came back for him; he swayed out of her grab again, set his feet against the slip of the water beneath them and reached within for his own essence flows. With a mental twist he could see the glittering pathways beneath the skin; in himself, and more importantly, in the woman. In a flurry of quick jabs, he struck at sensitive points in her essence flows, dropping her harmlessly unconscious. 

Mastery of one’s own essence flows was a necessary skill for enlightenment, and Pyrrhus had awakened his own power decades ago. Even the violent shifting of his psyche hadn’t completely robbed him of the facility, as it had with meditation and centering. It was infinitely easier now that he could see the flows he had previously only been able to intuit. 

Pyrrhus was yanked backwards by a hand wrapped in his topknot; the young man’s weight pulling him down. Pyrrhus went with the motion, turning under his grip and dropping to one knee. Once again the fellow was dragged off balance, and staggered again as the butt of Caleb’s pistol smashed into his temple. 

“Stay down, fella, don’ wanna hurt ya anymore’n--” Caleb was rambling. He brought his pistol up for another smashing blow, but Pyrrhus intercepted him. Another jab at essence points and the already wavering villager collapsed into a heap on the floor. 

“Not ideal,” Pyrrhus huffed, getting back to his feet. “But at least we were prepared.” 

“Bastard’s sending women at us. Hate hittin’ a woman, ‘specially when she don’t deserve it none.” Caleb’s first opponent, a motherly type who looked the same age as Pyrrhus himself, if not a bit older, was crumpled against the far wall of the chamber, bleeding sluggishly from a broken nose. Caleb holstered his weapon and swiped at his face with a palm, smearing dust and blood across one cheekbone. 

“Quicker we get through, then, the better.” Pyrrhus took a brief moment to fix his topknot; the boy had pulled the tie loose and strands fell into his eyes. He braided it down tight to his skull so no one else could grab it, moving with Caleb further into the tunnels.

“Reckon we’re goin’ the righ’ way with alla these folk hangin’ round.” 

Pyrrhus drew in a breath to speak but held it, reconsidering his words. There was no point in asking if Caleb was as concerned as he was; the answer had no bearing on their purpose no matter what it was. Caleb’s jaw was tight, with pain or distress, and he kept looking back at the women. Both of them shouldered their metaphysical burdens and kept on. 

The labyrinth had fewer and fewer choices to make the further they got in, and the water than ran down the center of the corridors steadily increased from condensation trickling to a steady stream going ever downward. Caleb squatted down at one point and dipped his fingers in the water, tasting it. “Same as the springs up top.” 

More and more chambers appeared, strung along the corridors like pearls, each with a handful of tattered blank-eyed villagers. Though they still attempted to slide past without triggering a melee, the villagers were more and more densely packed into the chambers until they had to be proactive just to clear a path through. 

“Is it just me,” Pyrrhus huffed at one point, dodging under an outflung fist and two-finger striking the points to collapse the elderly man attacking him as gently as possible. “Or… does this feel like desperation to you?”

“It does a bit,” Caleb drawled, carefully keeping his back to Pyrrhus’ so he could not be separated and pressed into a wall. “There’s a decided flavor o’ keepin’ us -- umph! Hey, now, fella, I’m tryna do you a favor here, an’ it’s damned rude to hit a man when he’s still talkin’ -- o’ keepin’ us focused here.”

“Buying time,” Pyrrhus said, dropping another and tossing them into their fellows, gaining them another few feet forward and into the clear corridor on the other side. So far, none of the villagers had followed them past the threshold marked by the narrowing of the chamber. He and Caleb moved together, the slighter gunslinger taking point with pistols drawn while Pyrrhus took up the rearguard, just in case the pattern changed and they did come down into the hallways. “For what?”

“Don’t matter none,” Caleb grunted. He looked progressively more grim the more villagers they encountered, and though he was bloody and bruised, he didn’t seem to be slowing down any. “Can’t do nothin’ bout it till we get there, and ain’t like we’re gonna change up anything. Can’t go any faster, even if we weren’t worried about these fellas’ hides.” 

Pragmatic but true as far as it went. Caleb paused and Pyrrhus slid past him. The dim orange light that had lit their way so far intensified from torchlight to bonfire-bright as they turned another corner. 

The labyrinth had ended. They had reached the center; a huge circular room which would have felt agoraphobic in comparison to the cramped corridors if not for what must have been nearly the entire population of the village crammed into the space. They were shuffling in through four other doorways, evenly spaced around the perimeter. Beyond them, in the center of the room, was an elegant spiral staircase. The water flowing down the walls pooled in the center and then rose upwards around the staircase’s opening, disappearing into grates set into the ceiling. 

“Ah, yup. A’course. There’s were all the kids are.” Caleb had leaned around Pyrrhus; he slid his pistols back into their holsters and buttoned down the safety loops over the top, so none could take them from him. “An’ here I was hopin’ they’d all escaped this nonsense.”

“Why exclude them? It would only hurt those who came after them worse.” 

The front ranks were the children of the town, from the age of three or so up; Pyrrhus was reminded viscerally of his own son, thousands of miles away. Young ones should never look so numb as these were. 

Only the knowledge of the artifact at the heart of this unnaturalness would change anything stopped Pyrrhus from scooping up the nearest child into his arms. He swallowed, hard, and like Caleb, secured his weapons by letting them fade, back into the essence that made them, ready for his call. “We have to get through. Surely the hearth room must be below.”

Caleb didn’t answer for a moment, staring at the starkly lit faces that waited for them. His eyes tracked from them to the water streaming upwards, the steam that billowed from it and obscured the smooth ceiling in clouds of vapor. “Ee-yah, must be. Unless it’s hid in the labyrinth somewhere.”

Pyrrhus pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is going to be difficult enough. Let’s assume it is below.” 

Speech became unnecessary. Pyrrhus slid into the ring of clear space around the outside of the waterfall room, Caleb right on his heels. He was looking for a place where the children were more thinly spaced, or at least older, to start his push into the crowd, knowing that as soon as he got close enough it would erupt into chaos. 

“Uh, Pyrrhus?” Caleb murmured from his back. “Whatever it is you’re waiting for -  _ Hurry up. _ ”

Pyrrhus glanced back over his shoulder. People were beginning to shuffle in from the hallway they’d just left, crowding them in. Soon he wouldn’t even have a chance to pick his ground for the fight; they’d force it. 

“...Sun in heaven. Alright -” Pyrrhus stepped into an Arbiter kata, and paced into the crowd. He slid past the children with a grimace, seized the first adult in front of him before the mass could get worked up and tossed the fellow into the ones next to him. “Caleb?”

“Righ’ behind ya, Zenith!” 

Time to clear a path.


	15. Chapter 15

_Caleb_

This was bullshit. Pure, grade-a, one hundred percent straight from Ahlat himself manure. Caleb stuck to Pyrrhus’ heels like a burr, shoving folks as what got too close and throwing punches at the ones what didn’t get dissuaded by a shove. That was most of them. Gods be damned, he hated it. The folks didn’t deserve it none, and Zalikar’s leftovers had enthralled almost everyone in town - from bitty kids all the way up to the grannies. Those he tried not to hit so hard, but the thrall had them ignoring anything less than a knockout blow. 

“Sorry ma’am,” he was saying every other second, ducking and weaving and trying to stick close to his partner. “Ain’t nothin’ personal, hope ya’ll understand, we’ll get ya all patched up as soon as may be. Darlin’, now, don’t go grabbin’ at me, you’ll get your turn. Hey now, fella, that’s my coat, you just leave off now, right?” 

He had to turn, throw off someone coming for Pyrrhus’ off side, and felt a hand grab at Medicine Man, slung on his back. He got yanked back, and suddenly there were a whole new crowd of people between him and Pyrrhus. 

“Caleb?” Pyrrhus’ voice rose over the sound of the water, concerned. Caleb couldn’t see him past the press of bodies. Caleb hoped to hell the man didn’t spark in the midst of this. Would be a shitty time for it, which probably meant it would happen.

“Don’ worry, man, I got it, keep goin’,” Caleb hollered back, snatching Medicine Man out of whoever’s grip it was, tightening the sling across his chest. Can’t let them get too close, can’t let anybody lay hands on him again or he could guess how that was going to end. 

Caleb is no stranger to bar fights, the kind of mob-brawls they spawn, but this is both like and unlike those kinds of fracas. Nobody was fighting anyone but him, and so instead of Caleb working his way through a hundred little swirls of fisticuffs it was just him and an ever-increasing number of blank-eyed faces reaching for him.

_ Where’d all these bastards come from? _

There were too many hands dragging at his sleeve. Caleb threw a punch and a poor sod dropped, but another was right there to hang onto his elbow. He couldn’t get leverage, backpedaled to avoid stepping on folk  --

“Caleb!” Pyrrhus’ voice echoed, muffled and distant. Caleb caught a glimpse of sky-sharp eyes over the head of somebody’s granny. Pyrrhus had cleared a space for himself, back against the water and the stairs down to the hearth room, but the possessed townsfolk were closing in on him as he tried to clear a path towards Caleb.

“Go on, man, run!” Caleb spun, buying himself a bit of time as the folk held onto his now-empty coat. Medicine Man clattered to the ground and Caleb swept it up, brandishing the heavy orichalcum stock like a short staff.  “Get on outta here, what are you waitin’ for? I’ll be right behind you, I c’n take care o’ myself!” 

“No; we must stay together--”

“Godsdamit, Pyrrhus, if one o’ us don’t get downstairs an’ turn this bugger off it ain’t gon’ matter, is it? GO!” Caleb tried to stuff as much imperative into his voice as possible, tried to mimic the trick Pyrrhus had pulled on the highwaymen outside of Crosscreek. It hadn’t worked on them, so he didn’t really expect it to work on the other Solar either. 

Pyrrhus snarled in frustration and dropped three closing-in villagers with as many essence-laden strikes  - and vanished into the upward fall of water. None followed him. 

“Alrigh’ fellas, jus’ you an’ me now,” Caleb crowed, and swung the butt of the rifle. 

“Don’t forget meee,” hissed that same awful discordant voice from earlier out of nowhere. A kid - a little girl, no older than eight - flung herself through the crowd (or was thrown?) and landed straight on Caleb’s chest. Caleb stumbled, one, two, back steps into the crowd. Hands pulled him down, shoved him to the ground.  Water soaked his clothes immediately, enveloping him in blood-hot warmth.

“No - shit - gorram it lemme go -” 

The floor shifted beneath his back, falling away like sand, dragging him down. Caleb filled his lungs with air and then stone flowed over his face - he was gone.


	16. Chapter 16

_Pyrrhus_

 

Pyrrhus took the stairs as quickly as he dared, Caleb’s exultant voice echoing down behind him. The man was right - Pyrrhus could not deny the truth of it though it pained him - and all he could do was pray and solve the problem as quickly as possible. He hadn’t realized how much he’d relied on Caleb’s presence at his back until it was gone and he was halfway down. 

The staircase was at least wide and grand, meant for dramatic entrances, and easy to descend even at the slightly reckless pace Pyrrhus was setting. The damp didn’t touch it, and no liquid condensed on its stone steps or railing despite the veil of ascending water. A glance upward confirmed a theory: the staircase ascended further than the labyrinth layer - the maze and the hidden staircase must be part of the manses’ defensive measures. It had already shown its propensity for capriciousness - if luck were with him it would not change its shape further before he did what they had come to do. 

He descended into ruined First Age splendor. Water dripped from a vaulted ceiling and pooled on broken tile in swirling patterns of red, orange, and gold. The place smelled of hot stone and dusty mold, and was lit with failing essence-light from carved orbs in the ceiling and beneath the broken tile. The walls were deep black stone streaked with grey and white, and the whole effect was like being inside a live coal - a coal in a sauna, perhaps. 

Broken furniture littered the ground, some against the walls, some scattered across the floors in a minefield of jutting wood, stone, and shreds of fabric. Round doors of colored glass framed in more flame-colored stone lined the sides of the oval hall, and behind him Pyrrhus glanced hallways leading off into more rooms, the crumpled remains of servitor automata collapsed halfway down. This was clearly some first age southern Solar’s conceit resort, with underground spaces for entertaining and impressing guests.  

It was also completely empty of people - or artifacts. 

“Where is our host?” he called into the space, drawing his Arbiter swords from his essence once more. “I’ve not yet greeted you personally, and it seems discourteous to have left it so long.”

Nothing answered him. He’d been hoping the voice, which had seemed intent on taunting them above, would continue to do so and give him a further direction in which to search. The need for haste warred with the need for caution, and his blades felt unsteady in his hands. Pyrrhus willed essence to his sight, changing his vision to see the unseen. As on the surface - nothing.

He didn’t have  _ time. _ Pyrrhus whipped the swords through a piece of ruined table; the remnants collapsed to the floor in clouds of dust and ash. 

It took him a heartbeat to register what he’d done. Pyrrhus recoiled from his own outburst, dropping his swords to the floor where they dissolved back into essence.  He tucked his hands under his arms and stared at the floor for long moments, shaken. This was not how such things were solved, with unrestrained violence. 

_ No - think. Your mind is your best weapon, as it always has been. Think like Calansei - where would he put a hearthroom in a place he intended to use for impressing his guests? _ Calansei. The remnants of his First Age self, the memories still attached to his shard of Exaltation which had never been wiped away thanks to the Orb of the Sun, only suppressed and redirected. 

Calansei had been a vain, arrogant, self-centered, self-righteous man, but he and Pyrrhus shared a bent for the philosophical, a hunger for the truths of the world, and a desire to see people liberated by truth instead of trapped in convenient lies. He was also an intemperate hedonist, like many of that Age, and would have been perfectly at home here. 

_ Would you have hid it, Calansei? Or placed it somewhere grand, protected but visible, where all could see and envy? _ Envy. Almost certainly. A few months living alongside his predecessor’s awoken memories had given him a good glimpse into the man’s personality. Pyrrhus crossed the long oval hall, stepping carefully around the broken debris, up to the grand doors on the far side. The light was stronger here, steady and yellow like a blazing lantern, turning the red glass of the doors gold-washed and obscuring any sight of whatever hid within. 

The doors were stuck in the unlatched position, their mechanisms suffering from neglect and poor maintenance, so they swung open easily (if noisily) when he set his hands to them. He paused to let his eyes adjust to the relative darkness within and renewed the essence-sight with a fresh infusion of power.

A shaft of tinted moonlight pierced the sphere of a room on the other side, pinning the roiling pool of superheated water in the middle and turning its reflections pallid and sickly. Bubbly black rock, glowing from magma within, formed the edges of the pool and smoothed into black glass  forming the floor, walls, and dome of the room. Red jade and orichalcum script glittered in a spiral pattern, covering the rooms’ surfaces, beginning on the eastern edge of the pool and completing circle after circle until it ended in the center of the ceiling, on the western edge of the skylight. 

But it was the scythe, glinting razor sharp beneath the moonlight, which arrested his gaze. 

It stood in the center of the pool on its end, defying gravity, amidst the shattered fragments of a bone-white hearthstone. He reached out to wrap his hand around the haft - and something moved in the shadows beyond. 

“Last Harvest of Recalcitrant Soul bids you welcome. They regret they cannot greet you themselves, but I am here in their stead, their faithful servant. I am Bitter Virtue.”

A woman, her head shaved bare and her glazed eyes on him, stepped into the wan green light. He recognized the robes she wore - for was he not wearing their mirror even now? And had he not worn such nearly every day since his eighteenth year? She was an Immaculate, just as he was. Her sandaled feet stopped at the edge of the pool, where the water boiled up and nearly scalded her. 

“Sister,” Pyrrhus called. He backed away from the scythe, turning his hands to a gesture of placation. “Sister, what are you doing? Has this blasphemous artifact stolen your thoughts, as well?”

“Aah, that iss not our way, Lawgiver. Not to thosse who would ssserve usss,” hissed the discordant voice again. It had a source, this time, not echoing from nowhere, and Pyrrhus’ head snapped around to track it. 

Another figure stepped out from behind Bitter Virtue, limned in the golden light of his essence sight - this being would be invisible to mortal senses. A dematerialized spirit of some sort. Emerald light emanated from its heart, obscuring its features, yet no light touched its surroundings. It laid a slender-fingered hand on Bitter Virtue’s shoulder. She made no sign she noticed.

“And who are you?”

“Your friend once knew me as Zalikar. When I leave here, you will call me Bitter Virtue. Asssuming you are ssstill alive to do ssso, of coursse.”

“Caleb said you were dead.” Zalikar. The Malfean. The demon.

“A mere inconvenience.” The emerald demon leaned forward and spoke quietly into Bitter Virtue’s ear. She shuddered and roused, life - and hatred - blazing in her dark eyes. If they had been essence cannons, he would be dead twice over merely by the strength of it. Pyrrhus stepped back. He’d had enough of fighting his brothers and sisters of faith. 

“Sister, wait--”

Bitter Virtue leapt at him, power lighting her channels in a fireworks burst that trailed from fists and feet. Pyrrhus ducked, slid beneath her and rolled to his feet on the far side of the pool, swapping their starting points. Virtue skidded on the slick floor and turned to meet him again. 

“Five Dragon Style,” Pyrrhus said. “Who was your sensei? Master Drum? Master Wandering Ivory? I trained at the Palace Sublime just as you did, sister.”

“Be silent, blasphemer.”

An echo of Peaceful Harvest’s - the Paragon of Sextes Jylis- voice condemning him followed in Virtue’s words. His vision, his will, wavered. “Do you call me so because of the power I wield? In defiance of what the Order claims to represent? Or do you say so because you see yourself now mirrored in the demon the Order has taught you to believe that I am?” 

“Be silent!” She screamed. She dodged around the superheated pool and came at him again through clouds of steam. Her fists were cocked to strike, drawn back like a heron’s dagger beak. 

Pyrrhus stepped into a kata reflexively, felt a familiar sunwashed power, and caught her fist as she struck. He held it, the Arms of the Unconquered Sun lending him strength and purpose and - he hadn’t dared touch Sol’s art since… before. Her essence burned against the Arbiter-armored skin of his palm. “Sister, please! Are we not one family by faith? Speak with me, please--”

The iron rod of Virtue’s arm faltered. She blinked, a sleepwalker coming back, and stared at him. “Honored Master?”

“Virtue - fight it.  **Fight the demon!** ” Pyrrhus twisted her fist and sent her stumbling back, towards the doors, and grabbed for the scythe.  

It didn’t move. He tugged, then again harder, but it might as well have been part of the Manse’s support structures for all it budged. Virtue swept his feet out from under him as he tried again to remove the scythe and Pyrrhus hit the black glass floor with a crack, tucking in to protect his head. He rolled to his feet but stayed low, a palm to the floor, regaining the breath knocked from him.

“You are trying to twist my thoughts,” Virtue said. Her eyes blazed hatred again. Pyrrhus’ gaze flicked up to the emerald-hearted demon and back again, but he said nothing. “It is you who are the demon, who I should slay. Why won’t you fight back? Strike me!”

“I will not,” Pyrrhus said. His hand was on a band of the script and the metal almost hummed beneath his skin, alive with essence jostling to be released.  _ Your mind is your best weapon… _

Pyrrhus could read Old Realm, and speak it as well as his mother tongue. He straightened, keeping back away from Bitter Virtue, and began to recite the sutra incised into the black glass. After the first few characters, the intent of the inlay was perfectly clear, the cipher dissolving into meaning as he spoke. Pyrrhus smiled, and gave his essence the mental twist that lit his caste mark. 

“Prayersss will not avail you, Lawgiver,” said the emerald-hearted demon. 

“You will not --” Bitter Virtue advanced and struck again and again - he let her, deflecting blows with armored elbows and turning them aside until it looked as though they were dancing, not fighting. She grew more and more frustrated with every failure to connect, and Pyrrhus grew more and more calm. The shaking anxiety from their entrance into the manse subsided. 

His speech did not falter, and with each verse completed a pulse of light emanated from the pool of superheated water and ghosted through the black glass floor. It held in the magical metal inlay, growing brighter with each verse. 

“What are you doing?” A new note of concern had entered the demon’s voice. “Ssstop - ssstop him, Virtue!” It flew to her shoulder and hissed into her ear. Bitter Virtue redoubled her efforts, aiming blows at his throat, his face, his diaphragm - trying to interrupt him. 

Pyrrhus caught her one last time, spinning her to tangle her arms with his and held her still. She knocked them both back into the far wall but it didn’t matter - Pyrrhus completed the last verse, and the command word. “ _ Aterstalla _ !”

The stored light exploded from the inlaid script in a thunderclap of heat, fire, and holy essence. 


	17. Chapter 17

_Pyrrhus_

 

Several things happened simultaneously to the flash of light and heat.

First, Bitter Virtue went limp in his arms, her struggles ceasing as abruptly as a puppet with its strings cut.

Second, a bubble formed in the upper reaches of the hearthroom’s wall. It broke with the same schlorp sound as a boot stepping into mud, and spilled a damp gunslinger listless onto the floor.

Third, the scythe exploded out of the hearthstone socket, narrowly missing Pyrrhus’ head as it rocketed past and ricocheted off the glass wall.

Fourth, the emerald-hearted demon keened, its light fading away to a dim pulsing glow as it was forced into materializing.

He set Virtue down against the wall in the ringing silence that followed. She was conscious, at least, but not moving, watching him and the demon with unbelieving eyes.

The command incised into the hearthroom had been a reset command, to shatter the hearthstones and purge the manse of its current essence storage, only triggerable by a Celestial exalted. As far as he could surmise it was not a usual manse function, but the volatility of the Pole of Fire and relative proximity to the Wyld made it a necessary safety feature here.

It also disrupted the essence patterns of almost everything else within its purview. Pyrrhus summoned anew the Arbiter armor and drew the swords with it. This time, he would use them, use them to send the cringing demon in front of him back to its masters.

“You do not belong here,” he told the demon. “You will leave - alone - or I will make you.”

“Sssuch mannerss,” it hissed, curled in on itself. Without the blinding light of the emerald heart, he could make out its features. Its pale, aristocratic face and long spindly limbs did not recall any of the demons of the First Circle he was familiar with. The needle-like teeth and flat dead eyes reminded him of siaka, shark-like creatures from the West. The pale blue skin, scaled with tiny teeth, reinforced the imagery. “Unbecoming for sssuch a guesst.”

The demon uncoiled and flew at him, feet never touching the ground. Pyrrhus slapped it away with the flat of the blade but it turned without regard to its own mass and sank teeth into his arm. It ripped away, tearing a fist-sized chunk of his essence with it and Pyrrhus felt the bite go straight through the armor. Essence leaked from his arm like blood, and he felt the drain deep in his core with real pain.

“Perhapsss you’ll ssserve as an entree inssstead?” it purred. Even as it spoke, the holy Solar essence dripped and burned tracks down its chin. It spat at Pyrrhus’ feet and wiped its lipless mouth. “Or perhapsss not. A bit spicy - fit only for these Ssssouthern dogssss.”  

Pyrrhus struck, too fast for the demon to react, and whipped a wicked slash of his own across the creature’s unarmored side. It keened and pressed its palms against the sudden rush of ichor, drawing back. He gave his essence the mental twist that lit his caste mark, and the energies heightening his skills began to bleed over into his anima. He stood at the center of a bonfire of his own sunlight. “Do not expect to taste of the Sun and not get burnt.”

Thus began the fight in earnest. It took Pyrrhus a few exchanges to adjust to his opponent’s erratic movements, but the demon no longer attempted to bite into his essence. Instead it came at him with physical claws and teeth in a flicker of noxious Malfean-tainted essence - the scent of brimstone and acid filled the small chamber. They exchanged a flurry of blows, neither one of them hitting their intended targets; the demon’s claws slid off his interposed blades, and his own strikes hit only air.

The rhythm of the fight paused. Pyrrhus faltered, braced for an attack that never came, and watched the demon watching him.

“No,” it finally said, drawing back. “Pfah. Like cracking a limpet. Too much work for too little sssweet flessh. The soirée is over, time to leave.”

It blurred into movement and flung itself at Bitter Virtue. Pyrrhus was not quick enough; though it took another slice from his blades, it did not slow down. The demon vanished into Virtue’s flesh, sinking beneath her skin like rain on dry ground. Virtue stood, holding herself much like the demon had, and ran towards the entrance.

“No -” Pyrrhus flung himself into her path and connected with her knees, narrowly avoiding falling into the boiling pool. “Caleb! Are you with me?”

There was a grunt from the gunslinger behind him. At least Caleb was alive. Virtue shrieked, an unnatural tea-kettle hiss of outrage, and blows began raining down on his head and shoulders. Pyrrhus tucked his head behind her knees and tried to get up onto a knee, to wrap the possessed Immaculate in a better hold.

“Caleb!”

“Let usss go, ssstupid creature,” Virtue hissed, twisting in his grip. Pyrrhus hit the pressure point in the back of her knee hard enough to deaden the leg and knock her off balance.  It must have looked comical from afar - the two of them writhing on the ground. The demon in Virtue’s body was trying to get away and he would not allow it; would not willingly leave another soul in the hands of those like Mistress and her ilk, ever.

His foot slipped off something round and metallic - the scythe. He kicked it away and got up on a knee, using his greater mass against Virtue. Some limitations even enlightened mortals could not work around, and simple weight was one of them. If he could get to the appropriate chi points he might be able to slow her further -

“...Sainen?” Caleb’s voice was thick and gravelly, just on the verge of consciousness. Pyrrhus could hear him moving, saw the gunslinger out of the corner of his eye roll onto his elbows and cough water out of his lungs. “Sai… no… Pyrrhus! Pyrrhus?”

“Oof -” Bitter Virtue’s heel connected with his stomach and knocked the breath from him.

“Ah, there you are, ya slimy -” Pyrrhus heard the scrape of metal on the glass floor; Caleb had grabbed the scythe. He planted it with a ringing strike and stood up, heading towards the two of them. But he stopped halfway there and fell to one knee. “Ah, hellfires, Zalikar, you--”

“Hah, the other nuisssance. Lassst Harvessst will deal with you,” hissed Virtue, getting a foot free and aiming a kick at Pyrrhus. He dodged, using her pre-occupation to plant a shoulder into the small of her back and wrap her arms. They both went down hard into the glass again, but this time Pyrrhus was in control and quickly got back to his feet, dragging Virtue with him.

“Caleb, drop the scythe!” But now that Pyrrhus’ vision was not full of Virtue’s flailing limbs he could see the other Solar gritting his teeth, conflicting emotions crossing his face, his hand white-knuckled around the haft of the scythe. He was fighting it. No Solar was weak - they had their flaws, certainly, but no one could say Solars were weak-willed as a whole. But was the scythe stronger?

Pyrrhus made sure Virtue was secure in his hold in one arm - she was still trying to get free but her leverage was all wrong, with her arms trapped between her back and his side - and reached out to grab the scythe.

_Something pushing at his psyche. Searching for weak spots in the walls of his defenses. He stood upon the wall and watched it probe and dig and scratch._

_“No,” he told it, firm. He could see the broken places, the crumbling parapets, but it would not. Those avenues were not open to it, were open to no one but those who had made them, and even they would find it hard going now._

_“No!” He heard echoed across the field. Another’s walls rose in the distance. Caleb stood upon them, his rifle in his hands and aimed at the Something._

_“We are not trapped with it,” he called to the gunslinger._

_Caleb brightened. “Naw. It’s trapped here with us.”_

_The landscape shifted. No longer was the Something without, trying to get in. Now the walls circled_ it _, and it was the one within. Its secrets were theirs to know._

Pyrrhus blinked and beside him Caleb straightened. The world had the same limning outline as when he invoked the spirit-sight, shading himself and Caleb in gold and Virtue in muddy green. The scythe in his hand hummed, straining to be used. Pyrrhus met Caleb’s eyes over Virtue’s head.

“HaHA--” Caleb crowed. Without breaking Pyr’s hold on the weapon, he raised it, cocking it in a ready stance. “You wanna harvest so bad, do it -”

The two Solars acted in unison. Pyrrhus spun Virtue out, away from him, with enough force she staggered. Before she, or rather the demon controlling her, could regain her balance, he and Caleb together swung the long cutting arc of the scythe.

The blade dissolved into mist as it touched the Immaculate. The demon was cut free from Virtue, leaking essence like blood. It screamed, a discordant shrill echoing in the walls of the hearthroom, and fled, streaming through the glass doors in blue-gray and vile green smears.

Pyrrhus let go of the scythe and Caleb dropped it, shaking his hands as though they were burnt. His own tingled and he scrubbed the palms on the smooth linen of his clothing. “Virtue? Are you well?”

“I… Yes.” She accepted Pyrrhus’ hand up and stood, swaying a little. “Bruised but whole, I believe. Master…?”

The moonlight piercing the chamber had lost its ugly green tint. Pyrrhus glanced at the scythe, laying innocently on the floor. He toed it but did not touch it again with his bare hands. “That thing should be destroyed. Before it does to someone else what it has done here.”

“Not gonna disagree with you on that one, friend.” He plucked his wet shirt away from his body in disgust. “Think it’s safe t’leave it for a bit, though.”

“Then let’s do so.”


	18. Chapter 18

_ Caleb _

 

They’d come out of the hearthroom and up the staircase into a confused muddle of folk, carrying Bitter Virtue between them, an arm slung over each of their shoulders. She’d insisted she was fine, but Caleb had seen her fall near flat on her face before the first step out of the hearthroom and decided to save everyone the trouble of pretending.  He reckoned they could all use a friendly touch right now.

“By the Seven,” were Sesen’s first words to them once they got up top again into the gray predawn light, trailed by a crowd of confused, formerly-possessed townsfolk. “You all did it. I didn’t really think - when you said - but, you’re all back…”

“Ee-yeah, an’ boy howdy have we had a hell of a night. Give us a hand here, friend -” 

And with that, Caleb started chivvying folk into action. Though really, the town was close-knit enough not much encouragement was needed - it happened in small places like this. Seems the Manse’s gates had flung open when Pyrrhus did whatever it was he’d done, and Sesen and a few others still left in town had come to investigate. 

As soon as Sesen and the others left outside got over their shock, they set about getting everyone settled, leading folk out of the manse’s grounds in little clumps and drabs. The townsfolk were exhausted and starving, and not a few of them were in need of doctoring (thanks to Zalikar’s toy and Caleb and Pyr’s rough handling, doing his sense of shame no favors). Caleb shortly found himself unneeded in the aftermath. 

And somehow he ended up in charge of a double handful of quiet, traumatized kids while their parents were busy;  assembling something resembling a meal or were treated by Pyrrhus or some of the others with doctoring skills. He’d found a chair to slouch into, and the kids had more or less settled at his feet while he rambled on telling stories to distract them. 

“...So Sainen didn’t lissen t’me, o’ course, and shook the bloody thing out of his boot! Y’all ever poked a thorntoad before? Y’know what it does when it’s mad?” Caleb leaned forward a bit, keeping an arm around the little girl that had climbed up onto his lap and clung like a burr before falling asleep. He thought it might’ve been the girl what got tossed at him only a couple hours ago, but his memory was a bit fuzzy. He wasn’t exactly in perfect health at the moment, head aching like a three-day-hangover and covered in bruises courtesy of the stone the manse had wrapped him in, but he’d do.

“They puff up!” chorused a few hesitant voices at his feet, all dark-eyed bronze-skinned Southern natives.

“They spit embers and stinky smoke,” said a stronger voice; an older boy about twelve who had his own cluster of younger siblings clinging to him further back. Gods, had Caleb looked like that as a kid? Naw, he’d had more anger in his heart. This was a good one.

“That’s right. The critter came out hissing and spitting everywhere, an’ o course Sainen’s right there so he got a good lungful of the stuff, not to mention a face full of sparks. I have never seen a man move so fast as he did, tryin’ t’get away from the little fella. Well an’ he stank for a week and the girls gave him all kinds of grief about it. Don’t believe he ever failed t’lissen to the desert rats again ‘bout livin’ out rough.” 

“Did you ever meet a hisanraj, Mister Caleb?” One of the little girls, clutching a stuffed critter so well loved any distinguishing features had long ago frayed away, looked up at him hopefully. Caleb grinned; what little girl didn’t love stories about the kirin of the deep deserts?

“Aye, I did. And my buddy Koba tried to ride it. Went about as well for him as y’might expect. D’ya want to hear the story?” 

A bunch of bobbing heads met him. He was just about to launch into the tale when Bitter Virtue stepped over the threshold, looking about like he felt. Caleb shut his mouth and cocked his head. She swept the room quickly and settled her gaze on Caleb. “Have you seen the Master?”

“The Master…? Oh, y’mean Pyrrhus. No, I ain’t seen him in an hour or so, he was doctorin’ folk.” Caleb shifted a bit to get a better grip on the sleeping child and stood up, sauntering over to the monk. The girl grabbed on tighter and buried her face into his shoulder. “Why, he gone missin’?” 

“Yes. I needed to speak with him… a matter of faith. Also, the meal is ready.” Virtue had a stone face nearly as good as that Zenith; Caleb wondered if it was something they just taught all monks as a matter of course. Either way he couldn’t tell anything about how the gal was feeling, aside from exhausted. She didn’t seem to shine to him, but it might’ve just been the hell of a day they’d all had. 

“Well, there’s good news. Y’hear that, kiddos? Dinner’s ready!” He pried the sleeper’s fingers from his damp vest and the strap of Medicine Man’s sling, passing her to a perplexed Virtue. The rest of the kids started clustering around her knees, timid sheep around a shepherd. “Why don’t you lead these un’s to food, an’ I’ll go find our missing man.” 

Pyrrhus had been looking a little shaky and white around the edges as they came up from the Manse and stubbornly stoic about it, so him vanishing didn’t surprise Caleb in the least. He scrubbed at the back of his head as he headed out into the town - the scythe hadn’t been the only thing left in the manse when they’d gone, his coat and hat were down there somewhere too, and he wasn’t looking forward to retrieving them. If he didn’t go underground for a year after this it’d still be too soon. 

“Whaddya think, Sol? Our boy down at the temple? Or hidin’ with the horses? Don’t suppose he’d go out into the desert by himself. An’ town ain’t that big.” Sol Invictus was silent on the matter, and Caleb let his feet take him where they willed while he patted himself down. Hellfires, even his cigarettes were soaked. Another strike against Zalikar-the-bastard. He made do with a match between his teeth instead. “I’mma guessin’ that burn o’ his waited until after t’hit him hard. Shoulda warned him, hey. Ah, well.”

The temple was quiet but not empty, though a quick glance over the heads bowed within didn’t reveal Pyrrhus’ distinctive blond braided mane. Caleb left as silently as he came in (not very, with the spurs and the gunbelt chiming with each step) and gratefully turned his steps in the direction of Sesen’s smithy where they’d left the horses. He never felt welcome in temples, no matter the name of the god they were dedicated to, and preferred to avoid their unnerving premises wherever possible. 

“Sun in Heaven, but I need a smoke,” Caleb announced as he came up to the little lean-to structure that served Sesen as a stable. He could just see Pyrrhus’ boots on the other side of Rain’s bulk and figured to give the man good warning. The other Solar barely glanced at him, his attention focused on methodically combing out the snarls in the gray’s mane as like the gelding was a spoiled temple princess not a common desert horse. The remnants of Pyrrhus’ anima still clung to his shoulders and hair like foxfire, flickering unevenly in the strengthening dawn light. 

“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see you down here,” Caleb said, dragging Dirt’s saddlebags out of the shelter and over to a spot in the shade to dig through them. He had dry clothes in there somewhere, too. How clean were they? He couldn’t remember. “Folk get a bit much for you?”

“A bit.” Pyrrhus was silent for long moments, still working through the mane while Caleb fished out another pack of cigarettes. He replaced the match with one and lit it, groaning in satisfaction with the first lungful of blue smoke. The sound prompted a question from the Zenith. “Are you injured?” 

“Eh,” Caleb replied, see-sawing his hand. “Tired. Bruises. Nothin’ worth worrying over. Ears are still a bit muddled, an’ my head’s worse but I’ll live. Whaddabout you?”

“Much the same, I imagine. Tired and bruised.” 

“That ain’t all, is it fella?” There was the clean stuff. Caleb extracted a set and began repacking the saddlebags. Every so often he looked up at Pyrrhus, head cocked. The man had gone still and was taking deep, controlled breaths. “Naw, thought not.”

“Nothing… bad. Just a little overwhelmed.” Pyrrhus moved again, patting Rain’s neck and dropping the comb back into the little bag of grooming supplies. “The people were grateful to be freed.”

Caleb could imagine how that had gone. He climbed back to his feet, ambling over to lean on Rain’s back. Dirt lifted his head from his flake of hay and snuffled into Caleb’s hair, offended there was no hat to steal still. Caleb pushed his mount’s muzzle away and reached over to lay a friendly hand on Pyrrhus’ shoulder instead. “An’ that’s why y’had to leave and groom the horses. Naw, it’s ok, I understand. Y’wanna talk about it?”

“Not right now.” Pyrrhus shrugged out from under Caleb’s hand but softened it with a smile; the easiest smile he’d seen from the man since he came South in the first place. “I’m ...well, not fine. But I’ll be alright. I just needed a few minutes. What about you, Caleb?”

“Don’ worry about me,” Caleb laughed. “I been through a lot worse. I just need a good dinner an’ a nap before I get my days straight again. Speakin’ of, though, they got a meal and beds waitin’ for us back there. Ya need t’ take care of yerself after shit like that, so c’mon. Let’s go eat.”

Pyrrhus hummed assent and picked up his own packs, thumping Rain affectionately on the shoulder to get the gray to move out of the way. “It’s Jovesday, today. The twenty sixth.” 

“Oh, is it? Happy Nameday t’me then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only two more chapters & this will be wrapped up, friends. & then I will spend a year tweaking and editing and re-uploading lol.


	19. Chapter 19

_ Pyrrhus _

 

He woke before the sun rose the next morning… long before the sun rose. The room they’d bunked in was still dark, painted in blue shadows and thin moonlight. Pyrrhus slid from the pallet quietly, trying not to disturb the many other forms clustered together on mats on the floor and edged towards the door. Most had not wanted to disperse after the meal, still shaken, so the common hall of the town had become an impromptu dormitory.  Caleb was sleeping propped up in a corner within arm’s reach of Pyrrhus, a little girl tucked against his side and both wrapped in his red poncho. It didn’t look terribly comfortable for either of them. Especially with the gunbelt coiled against his other side, ready to rise up like a protective serpent spirit.

The night was cool and quietly peaceful now, without the lingering sense of dread and malevolence the scythe and its master had imparted. He wrapped his cloak around his shoulders against the desert chill and made his way through the empty streets to the gates of the manse. He’d learned its was called Heart of the Pierced Phoenix, and he had to suppress a heavy sigh at the name. Fate was having a joke at his expense, it seemed - his anima totem was a phoenix.

_ Now what? _ He thought, glancing up at the stars. Luna was nearly a full disc in the sky, sinking into the western oceans far away, still a handspan or so over the tops of the flat roofs of the town. There were still some loose ends to tie off - the scythe to retrieve and destroy, Bitter Virtue to.. To what? Heal? And himself still in pieces? Pyrrhus folded his arms tightly over his chest. Something should be done for her.

“Honored Master?” 

Pyrrhus glanced over his shoulder. “Couldn’t sleep either?”

Bitter Virtue didn’t respond immediately, only coming over to stand beside him. “I feel like I have spent the better part of the month asleep. I can’t close my eyes - as if something terrible is going to happen if I do.”

Pyrrhus nodded slowly; they both stood quietly and regarded the quiescent manse. The faint bubbling of the hot springs and chirping of nocturnal insects seeped into the silence; comforting, normal sounds. He ought to go in, retrieve the scythe before anyone else fell under its sway. He was fairly certain, after yesterday, he could withstand it now. 

“Master…?”

“Pyrrhus. My name is Pyrrhus.”

“Master Pyrrhus. The… whatever it was. The demon. It’s really gone?” 

Pyrrhus turned to give Virtue his full attention. He hadn’t really spent the time to do so within the manse itself, and then afterwards between his own preoccupation and the needs of the townsfolk he had… well, he had avoided her, to be honest. She was maybe the same age as himself or slightly older; the typical shaved style of Immaculates making her appear younger. She had the complexion of one from the southern coasts of the Blessed Isle, Arjuf or thereabouts, and the accent of one educated in the Realm. 

Pyrrhus changed the essence flows of his senses, willing the Sight back, and studied the flows of her chi. The yellow power was clear and bright, thick threads pulsing between her chakras and points in a steady current. No shadows or smears marred her soul.

“It’s gone,” he said in Low Realm after a moment and dismissing the Sight. “I see nothing in your essence flows that is not wholly you, sister.” 

“That’s somehow not as comforting as it ought to be.” She sighed and tucked her hands into her sleeves, mirroring his posture. “And what then, should I make of you? You wear the garb of a brother - of one of a higher coil than I, even - but the power you wielded in… in that place… was not of the Dragons. Are you another demon, waiting to ensnare me?”

“You don’t sound convinced of that yourself.” Pyrrhus shrugged. “I’m not Dragonblooded, no. But neither am I a demon. Are you willing to listen before you judge?” 

“You and your friend there rescued this entire town from those creatures. I’ll extend you the benefit of the doubt, yes.” 

“I was going to go back, to retrieve the scythe while it is still quiet. Will you accompany me as we speak?” Pyrrhus gestured to the manse, then held up a hand, palm outward, at her hesitation. “I swear on the blessed name of the Dragon Hesiesh, Suitor of Sutras, he whom I follow - I mean you no harm.”

“Swear by Sextes Jylis and the Five perhaps I will believe you,” she replied quickly.

“I so swear.” Pyrrhus put his fist to palm and bowed to her, and only then did she follow him back into the manse complex. The elaborate staircase they had come out of not that long ago still stood prominently near the base of the obelisk; its entrance shaped like the head of a screaming phoenix of black obsidian and red stone, inlaid with golden metal plumage. Pyrrhus laid his hand along the line of adamant spheres set into the side of the passageway and willed them to life with a flicker of essence. Light flooded the stairwell and they headed into the depths.

“I have always sought the past, as a dedicate of Hesiesh,” Pyrrhus began. “Even before… this power, before I even felt the first touch of the razor. And in that search, I found something that my elders did not like. I found original writings from the Immaculate Dragons, in their own hand, deep within the ruins of the city on the Sacred Mount. Their definition of Anathema, of the hierarchies was… much different than what is taught today. I found evidence that our Order had been twisted away from its original vision to serve the purpose of misguided authorities, to keep order instead of truth.”

“Do you have proof of any of this?” Virtue asked. “There have always been heresies trying to subvert our people’s faith. I would believe a Fifth Coil less susceptible.” 

“It is not a heresy. It is the original.  And yes, I do have proof, though not with me. I didn’t anticipate a need for it on this journey.” Pyrrhus shrugged helplessly. “If you wish, you’re welcome to visit me on the Mount and I will show you. Paragon Harasa made me Lama of the Center.”

“Does the Paragon know of… all this?” They had reached the bottom, the room that Pyrrhus had labeled the ballroom, strewn with the wreckage of First Age luxury. The hearthroom glowed across the wide space, its doors still yawning open. 

“She does. She is convinced. She does not believe I am a demon, either.” Pyrrhus started hunting among the debris - he thought he remembered a silk hanging, or some other swath of fabric amongst the other rubble. 

“Then what are you?” Virtue stayed close to the staircase, just outside its shroud of steaming water, her eyes dark smudges in her face. “You bear the mark we’ve all been taught to think is a demon possessing someone like I just was. What are you, if not a demon masquerading as an Immaculate?” 

“I am a Chosen of Sol Invictus. An Exalt, just like the Princes of the Earth,” Pyrrhus said, straightening with a long length of cloth in his arms. THe ghost of a smile tugged at the edges of his lips. “Where the blood of the Dragons flows through families and lineages, the Unconquered Sun chooses his champions more sparingly. He chose me. But I have the same responsibilities and burdens under this power that any of the Dragonblooded do.” 

“Ah. Like defeating Last Harvest and… whatever that other thing was.”

She followed as he turned and went into the Hearthroom again. Pyrrhus had to pause on the threshold, his hand fisting in the ancient cloth, but he fought down the sudden irrational burst of panic (she’s dead, she’s gone, she’ll never touch you again, she is  _ not _ waiting in the dark for you) and carried on.

“Much as we always do, sister,” he replied instead. She did not cross the threshold with him, merely waiting with narrowed eyes as he hunkered down beside the deceptively innocent looking scythe. There was a pin and latch assembly near the heel of the blade; removed, it would allow it to fold snug to the haft. Pyrrhus drew in a steadying breath and reached for the mechanism.

There was only the barest whisper of another presence nudging at his mind this time; accepting its subordinate fate, perhaps. This was one of the more complex artifacts he’d ever seen. Simplistic in its outermost seeming, perhaps, but fiendishly intricate beneath, with all it had accomplished. He was half-tempted to bring it to Akaris - his Circlemate would enjoy studying its craftsmanship… but best not. Nothing good could be made of corruption. It was a lesson both of them had learned before. 

Pyrrhus disengaged the latch and folded the blade down, carefully avoiding the sharp edge, then wrapped the whole thing in the silk. Silk was special; its slick fibers especially good at muffling and muting magical noise. Not enough to truly hinder anyone with the proper enlightenment or senses… but he felt better, to have the extra insulation around the thing before taking it back above ground.

“What will you do with it now?” Virtue asked as he emerged. 

“Take it to be properly destroyed. In living magma if I must, or by an artificer if one suited to the task can be found.” He held it like an awkward staff, planting it firmly amongst the debris as they strode back towards the dimly lit staircase. 

“Really? It is a powerful weapon. You would not seek to tame it, to use it?” Virtue’s tone was nearly as flat as his could be, but he recognized the shared source. 

“I see you were trained in rhetoric by Master Sleeping Viper as well,” Pyrrhus said with a smile. She was trying to draw him into a mistake, much like the Master used to. His sobriquet was well earned. “No. It is not worth it. It will be destroyed.” 

The other Immaculate nodded and followed him back out of the manse. Pyrrhus paused to scoop up Caleb’s hat and longcoat; both lying by the staircase where nothing but debris had been before. Was it a night’s overactive imagination, or did the manse seem meekly apologetic in its offering?  “I am glad to hear it, Master Pyrrhus. Then… there’s one other thing I’d like to ask you.”

“Of course, sister.”

“Will you lead the ritual?”

Pyrrhus stopped short in the beaked maw of the staircase, just shy of the spill of moonlight lighting the path back into town.  “I’m sorry? Which ritual...?” 

“Five Dragons’ Redemption. It is performed at the conclusion of every Wyld Hunt, to cleanse the Hunters from any lingering impurities left by encountering anathema. It helps the Hunters return to their homes with a peaceful heart. Surely a brother of your Coil...?”

Surely.

Surely, the brother knew. But Pyrrhus had never heard of the ritual. Likely, he surmised, because he had never been on a Wyld Hunt (save as a target, briefly), had never ministered to its members afterward. 

Nor had he been privy to their specialized rites and practices. It was something, according to Bitter Virtue, mostly kept within their chapter-houses. While Pyrrhus had the rank and authority to visit and learn their lore, it had never been very high on his priorities… somewhere below avoiding unwanted attention and remaining off the list of prey.

Virtue wanted - needed - the assurance such a purification ritual would bring. Or she would, she explained, continue to feel the oily voice of the demon in her ear, even after it was gone. Memories of Mistress’ touch on his skin, drawing along his flank, had jittered to the surface of his mind at her description. A visceral longing had grabbed hold of Pyrrhus and refused to let go. He, too,  _ needed _ this assurance. 

Caleb had been deeply mistrustful when he’d been politely informed - the ritual would take place in the wilds away from town and lasted an entire week - but didn’t say not to either. Pyrrhus would not have listened in any case - this was a matter of his faith, and not something he expected the other man to understand or join. 

“Just don’t go expectin’ to come back the way y’were before, is all I’m saying. If you think it’ll help it likely will - but nothin’s gonna make you whole the way y’remember anymore. Experiences change a fella,” he’d said, accepting his hat and jamming it onto his head. “And no spiritual nonsense will erase that.”

“I know,” he’d replied, laying a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. The other man seemed to take reassurance from the gesture, the furrow of his brow easing. “I’m not looking for a miracle. Just a measure of peace.” 

“...Awright. Then I wish you well of it.” Caleb drew him in with a one-handed hug and thumped him hard. “But if you think I ain’t gonna be nearby just in case more shit goes down, you’d best correct it.” 

Caleb’s paranoia was unwarranted. Even now, as Pyrrhus went through the week’s final steps following Bitter Virtue’s lead, he could see the distinctive silhouette of the gunslinger. Caleb lounged on the next ridge with his rifle ready and propped on his knee, a small dark shape backlit by the dawn. It had been a long week of fasting and quiet meditative prayer beneath the open sky, broken only by the daily rite they were now repeating for the last time.

“As we step into the waters of Danaa’d, we remember: We have taken what actions we could, and we accept what has occurred. What has happened, has happened. We bear the responsibility of them - but let Danaa’d free us of their burden.” 

Bitter Virtue stood beside him, both of them stripped to the briefest layers, like he wore for training. A fast-flowing stream, spring-fed and cold and the reason they had chosen this place for the ritual, rushed through this narrow area of the badlands. Directly beside the camp it eddied into a deep pool. Virtue made the symbol of Danaa’d with her outstretched hand and Pyrrhus mirrored her. They both stepped into the freezing waters and vanished beneath the surface. 

The current threatened to sweep him away, but with a numb handhold on a rock Pyrrhus kept steady for as long as he could. The green-black water swept past him, and he envisioned it drawing the last of the taint of the Underworld along with it. Ten heartbeats… fifteen… he opened his eyes to make his way back upwards, started at the vision of a smiling crystalline face in the water before him. It vanished and Pyrrhus hauled himself out on the bank beside Virtue. 

A long narrow fire lay stretched before them, stoked as high as its flames would go on resinous mesquite and acacia. Bitter Virtue paused only a moment to catch her breath before continuing the ritual. 

“Thanks be to Danaa’d for washing us clean. As we pass through the flames of Hesiesh, we remember: We have used our gifts wisely and well. We have done as was necessary and nothing more, and we do not fear the consequences. Let Hesiesh burn away our doubts.”

Again, Virtue and Pyrrhus made the symbol of Hesiesh and together stepped slowly through the curtain of flame. Steam rose in hissing curls from their clothing, skin, and hair but they were unscathed, protected by Danaa’d. Pyrrhus let his fingers linger in the yellow tongues, acknowledging his childhood connection with the Immaculate Dragon of Fire. 

“Thanks be to Hesiesh for the scouring fire.” Bitter Virtue drew in a breath; together they made the sign of Mela. “As we accept the breath of Mela, we remember: we have sought perfection in all things, and in this, we have triumphed over that which sought to bring Creation down. We did not set out for glory or fame, for that is not the way of the Dragons. Let Mela show us the way.”

Air moved, singing down through the curved canyons. They both stood quietly as it swirled and blew around them, kicking up bits of dirt and debris and drying the last of the water. Pyrrhus let his focus drift from Mela to the Sun as well, feeling the light’s weight on the metal of his tattoos as much as on his scarred back. Both were seekers of perfection; to honor them doubly in this moment seemed appropriate. To remember even though he had come so far, he was not exempt from further striving. 

“Thanks be to Mela for the driving breath.” 

Pyrrhus followed Virtue as she crossed the campsite to a basin previously prepared with water from the stream and white powdery clay. She knelt on one side and again Pyrrhus mirrored her on the other.  “As we touch the earth of Pasiap, we remember: all things are grounded, and all return to the earth. We have struggled and worked, and now return to balance - enduring.  Let Pasiap strengthen our resolve, together.”

Together they made the symbol of Pasiap, then placed hands in the basin of wet earth, mixing it into smoothness with sinuous synchronized motions. Hands coated in white clay, they reached across and to each other’s shoulders. For a moment, they were connected, two strong against shakes and doubts. Pyrrhus could well imagine the impact this ritual would make, with a whole Talon or even a Wing all interconnected. He was not alone. He was  _ not alone… _

Bitter Virtue lifted her hands from his shoulders after another span of heartbeats, leaving white handprints on his dark skin. His own mirrored hers. “Thanks be to Pasiap for the supporting stone.” 

There was one last step. A hollow of coals, smooth rocks heated to nearly glowing, and bundles of narrow-leaved greenery waited, equidistant from the other four places, so that together all five made a loose circle. Together they picked up the green bundles and made the sign of Sextes Jylis. 

“As we hold the flora of Sextes Jylis, we remember: life continues beyond our own struggles. As we show compassion to our fellows and leave behind the battles we have fought, we are renewed. We hold our minds to what is best for all, and find our peace in serving. Let Sextes Jylis remind us how to heal.” 

Together they lay down the bundles of cedar, juniper, and sage on the glowing stones. White fragrant smoke curled up around them. Pyrrhus breathed it in, let Bitter Virtue’s closing words flow over him and into the sky.

_ We are renewed. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~(expect this to change slightly since I'm posting super late and expect to edit it _again_ in the morning~~ (edited, should be shinier now!) but you guyyysss I just loved this scene I had to post it now. Caleb's great, but this has always been Pyrrhus' story.)


	20. Chapter 20

_Caleb_

 

 

They rode the slow way to Riven, winding through canyons with only the barest flicker of Caleb’s charms to speed them. Neither of them felt much like hurrying, and since no cryptic messages saying otherwise had materialized in their packs or gear (Caleb still hadn’t quite forgiven Lysistrata for managing to get a note into the barrel of Medicine Man once), they made their lazy way westward.

On the third day, Caleb led them to a well of wild Fire essence where living magma spilled from the rock and dripped back down through cracks in the ground. The two of them unceremoniously dumped the hated scythe into the liquid rock and waited a long while to make sure it was well and truly destroyed.

That night, sitting around a cheerful blaze of a fire since Pyrrhus had found a good deadfall stuck in a wash of a dry riverbed, Caleb fished out a piece of bait and tossed it in front of the tiger one more time.

“Ya did good down in the manse, friend.”

Pyrrhus looked up, startled, as though Caleb had thrown a live scorpion in front of him and not a fishy sort of compliment. After a moment pinning Caleb under the sky-sharp gaze, Pyrrhus shrugged and returned his attention to the bit of harness he was cleaning. “I… thank you.”

“But that shave-head gal shook ya up didn’t she?”

Pyrrhus sighed and set the harness aside. “You are irritatingly perceptive, sometimes.”

Caleb put two fingers to his temple and winked, drawing out the gesture. “Regular deadeye. Thought you’d get along with her, though, on account of the whole Immaculate thing.”

“Bitter Virtue and I were quite friendly, thank you, after a few conversations on our particular interpretations of the Immaculate Texts.”

“Like whether or not y’was a demon too.”

“...that did come up, yes.” Pyrrhus shifted, his hands loose in his lap. “You were welcome to join us.”

“Naw. I don’t do none of that...” Caleb waved a hand, at a loss for a sufficient word. “That stuff. Rather just talk to my gods like they were regular folk. We get on fine that way.”

“Many rituals like those are not for the gods’ benefit, Caleb,” Pyrrhus said. The Zenith cocked his head and regarded Caleb steadily. “They’re for ours. They are comfort and assurance and forgiveness in one. It is a complement to the method you spoke of, not a replacement.”

“If you say so. An’ if they help you, I ain’t gonna drag ‘em down.” He dug at the dirt with his heel a bit, his spur leaving a furrow in the soft stuff. “I do wanna know why they help you though. So iff’n I ever meet another religiousy type in pain, I’ll have somethin’ t’offer ‘em. If you can explain, that is.”

The Zenith huffed a bit; a bit of humor or a bit of frustration - Caleb couldn’t quite tell. He leaned forward, his fingers laced around his knee, and thought quietly for a moment. Caleb fished out his rolling papers and packet of dokha and set about making a few cigarettes while he waited. Finally, Pyrrhus spoke, slowly, but not in the pained way from when they’d had a few bottles between them that time ago in the hot upper room in Crosscreek. Slow, now, because the words were deliberately chosen.

“It helps me because… it is an avenue of spiritual cleansing I did not know existed. I had been under the impression that I would have to live with feeling the stain of Mistress on my soul for the rest of my life.”

“Could be a long-damned time, eh.” Caleb stuck one of the cigarettes, unlit, in his mouth and put the rest he’d made away into his shirt pocket.

“Mmm.” Pyrrhus hummed agreement. “There’s much more than the physical side of things. Those wounds were healed within six months, at least enough to feel almost normal.” He stretched out one hand and made a fist, the muscles of his forearm flexing and making the dozens of tiny white scars shine in the firelight. “And I knew something was wrong with my mind, knew I needed to speak with someone about it, that it could be healed…”

He paused again, gathering his thoughts, and Caleb stayed quiet. The fire crackled and spit sparks on hidden pockets of resin, the horses swished tails and farther out night-active birds and insects sang into the dark. The glow of the Pole of Fire to the south was barely visible over the lip of the canyon. It felt peaceful finally, though Caleb was well aware there were always things waiting in the night. The guns hung heavy at his belt, just in case.

“I should have known. There is a rite, a ceremony, an observance for nearly anything in the Order. I know ...probably twelve different versions of marriage services, eight or nine funeral rites, at least as many ways of anointing a newborn, of naming a child, hallowing a field, blessing a harvest, petitioning for rain, to honor the local deities in the proper ways…! And it never occurred to me to even look for a way to… to feel clean in my faith first. I broke so many of the vows I held… I thought there was no way back for me.”

Pyrrhus rolled to his feet, a smooth movement belied by the pained expression Caleb saw briefly crossing his face in the moment. The Zenith took a few pacing steps and brought himself up short, remaining still only by an effort of will. Caleb waited, patient as a stalking cat, just watching with his chin in his hands.

“The Wyld Hunt is not something I made a study of, except to avoid. But - for all they hunt those like me… like us… - they still do a lot of other good. They Hunt things that are truly, objectively harmful. Things like -” Pyrrhus gestured in the direction they'd come from, where the hated scythe lay unmade in ribbons of molten metal at the bottom of a magma vent. “Like that. If anyone would know a rite to absolve one of terrible things done in the name of defeating evil… to cleanse away any taint or corruption before it is brought home… it would have been the Hunt.”

“No wounds can heal, not properly, until you remove the knife. Yes?” Pyrrhus glanced over to Caleb - to see if he was still following, he guessed. Caleb nodded. “The fear of her remaining, twisting me forever, even though I know whatever Mistress was is gone - that is my knife. Was. Was my knife.”

“Ah. I see.” Caleb dragged his hat off his head and rubbed where the band sat. The Zenith looked at him and Caleb put his other hand up, palm out. Calm, tiger. “Naw, really, I do. Y’just went about pullin’ it a different way than I did, an’ I was tryin’ to show you my way. Been so long an’ look; I’m still learnin’ too. S’good.”

“I still need what you taught.” Pyrrhus relaxed a bit and settled back down into his spot, dragging the harness and cleaning supplies back into his lap. “I’m not sure I would have been able to see what I needed when the opportunity was presented if you hadn’t…”

Caleb reached over and punched Pyrrhus lightly in the arm. “No worries, pal. I ain’t the jealous type.”

They lapsed back into companionable silence. Caleb finally lit his cigarette and exhaled clouds of blue smoke into the sky.

* * *

 

Riven was a far cry both from Crosscreek and Curesprings - both those towns had the air of the rundown and depressed to them. Riven, though. Riven was slowly but surely turning into a bit of a home for Caleb and he rode in like a conquering hero, high in the stirrups. Even Dirt picked up his feet and made a show of it with an arch to his neck and a flag to his tail. Riven was lively and if more than a fair share of its buildings were in need of repair, well, so it was in much the rest of the world. Its people were cheerful and welcoming to a pair of dusty travellers, especially when one of them was their favorite local gunslinger.

“Right, so…” Caleb had said right before they got into town around a stem of grass he’d plucked. A spring-fed river crashed through the middle of Riven, and the town was more verdant than anything else in the badlands so far. “There’s only a few folks here as know I’m sun-chosen. It ain’t that I’m keepin’ it secret, exactly… it’s just not come up. Complicates things. An’ nobody but nobody knows I’m Wraithshot. I’d like t’keep it that way. Here, I’m just Caleb.”

“Of course,” Pyrrhus said. It was probably stupid of Caleb to say - who else would know better to keep closed-mouthed than a fellow like Pyrrhus? But Caleb appreciated the seriousness with which the Zenith took the suggestion.

Caleb took them up to the top of the town and dropped horses and gear at the Silver Dinar, greeting the folk he knew as they passed. Seemed there were more of them every time he came through town. By the time he’d started leading Pyrrhus on a tour of the place, he’d acquired a couple of kids tagging along at his heels. They were both young ones who reminded him of himself when he was younger, and he’d been trying to steer them away from the path he’d taken.  

“Hey, Rory, y’quit pestering Master Shuan. He’s got customers an’ you ain’t buyin’ no blades t’day.” They ended up in the marketplace, full to bursting this Sunsday. The boys ran everywhere while Caleb and Pyr strolled and chatted. Pyrrhus bought them sambousek and egg rolls and bao zi  from a vendor walking the aisles.

Since Riven was just a little ways off one of the main trade roads north from Gem, its location and the plentiful water made it a frequent stop for traders’ caravans (And a fat target for raiders, but Riven had its bevy of guardian spirits, not the least of which was a creature of fire and metal and vengeance called Wraithshot). There were little bits of everything here - not as grand or sundry as Gem’s markets, but a sight more cheerful.

“But, Caleb, I gotta learn sometimes-” Rory was protesting.

“Aye, y’do, but not on Shuan’s good steel an’ not today, so y’step off. Go find practice blades and I’ll teach you a bit, later, if yer ma says it’s ok -” the boy was already off and running again. His partner in crime, scrawny Sarid, was right on his heels. “An’ both of ya - no touchin’ nothin’!”

“Well, that ain’t gonna come back t’bite me,” Caleb commented, watching them race off.

“Is this what life is usually like, for you?” Pyrrhus asked. The man had already acquired half-a-dozen trinkets (for his family, he’d said) and was finishing off a bao with neat bites from chopsticks.

“More or less. I ride circuit, really, only come through here few times a season. From here to Crosscreek, round through Clearstone and Rattlegorge, down all the way to Blind Trail and a few others.” Caleb stuffed his last sambousek into his mouth and continued talking after a moment of chewing. “Probably ought to add Curesprings now, too. Somedays go out into the Badlands proper with the Lioness or the Firecat t’do some manse-breaking or take care of what comes up. Most of the time, though… I’m just around. Scarin’ off raiders, collectin’ bounties, being whatever counts as law in some places.”

“And teaching boys swordwork?” Pyrrhus smiled.  

“Well, if I can drill some discipline into ‘em at the same time, eh?” Caleb laughed. “Probably not the best teacher fer that, really, but it keeps ‘em out of trouble. An’ if I can keep ‘em out of trouble long enough, well, mebbe they won’t end up like me.”

“What, a... “ Pyrrhus tapped his forehead. “A champion?”

Caleb just grinned and shook his head. “Something like that. C’mon, it’s hot. Let’s go back to the Dinar and get a drink.”

“I’ll meet you there in a few minutes. There’s one more thing I want to pick up.”

* * *

 

 

“Happy Name-day.”

“...What?”

A neat package wrapped in a clean blue bandanna had been set down in front of him. It weren’t often Caleb was rendered bereft of words, but damn if the Zenith hadn’t managed to do just that, and look right smug about it too.

“You said it was your name day, back in Curesprings.” Pyrrhus settled down across from Caleb, setting the rest of his packages at his feet. “I thought you should have something more than Last Harvest in your head to mark the occasion.”

“Aw, Pyr. Uh… thanks…  Sun in heaven, man, y’didn’t… what is it?” Caleb rocked his chair back down onto all four legs and set his whisky glass to one side.

“Open it and find out.”

Caleb didn’t need to be told twice. He dug into the package eagerly, stuffing the bandanna wrap into his belt and laying out the goodies inside. A bottle of deep amber liquor, several packets of different flavored stick candy, and a smaller container with dozens of small spheres the size of his fingernail, coated in white powdered sugar. “Hellfires, man, y’went an’ got the good stuff! Karasch single-malt? Damn. Hah, an’ ya sussed out my sweet tooth too. ...What’re these?”

“Chicle. We have it on the Isle… it’s a kind of sweet. You chew it until it loses flavor or dissolves. Given your propensity for such things, I thought you might like it. It’s likely better for you than those cigarettes you keep smoking anyways.” Pyrrhus grinned and gestured; to be sure, there was a toothpick hanging out the corner of Caleb’s mouth just then. “I feel I don’t know you quite well enough to pick out something truly fitting so I hope you enjoy it.”

“Naw, I love ‘em. Thanks, Pyr. You sayin’ I’m mouthy, though?” Caleb laughed, pulling out the toothpick and sticking it in his shirt pocket with the cigarettes.

Pyrrhus just cocked an eyebrow. “I am not saying anything.”

“Hah, right.” Caleb picked a little ball of chicle out of its jar and tried it. As he set the jar back down, it dislodged a piece of fine rice paper from the packets of gifts. “What’s this?”

“Not from me. Our other friends perhaps?” River Sky, one of the servers, came over with a pot of tea for Pyrrhus; Caleb gave her a smile and wink and suffered through the heavy sigh and eye-roll he got in return. Pyrrhus leaned across and plucked the prayer strip from his hand. “Must be from the starborn. Who else would leave Maiden scriptures in odd places?”

Caleb dragged Pyrrhus’ hand back across the table to read the strip upside down - something about a maiden and a road and someone waiting under a lamp - he couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He let Pyrrhus go and chewed on the chicle for a bit. It was good, flavored with something green-tasting and sharp. He’d have to keep an eye out for it once the gift ran out - he felt cooler just tasting it.  “Guess that means yer liberty call’s over.”

“I believe you are correct.” Pyrrhus tapped the paper edge against the table.

“I’da thought you’d be pleased t’hear it,” Caleb said. Sun in Heaven, how the blazes did Pyrrhus manage to find a bottle of Karasch all the way down here? That was Northern whisky - the best. He tilted the bottle back and forth, watching the play of amber light across the table.

“I am.” Pyrrhus set the strip down and picked up his tea instead. He had that furrow in his brow Caleb had learned he was picking his words like a cook choosing fruit at the market - looking them over for flaws and discarding anything that wasn’t up to snuff. “But leaving is also bittersweet. ...I apologize for being difficult, earlier.”

Caleb snorted. “Naw. Difficult is Dirt on a bad day. Friend, ya didn’t even rate troublesome.”

“Ah. So, you would consider us friends?”

“Surely do. Mutual life-saving gives ya that much by anyone's gauge, and a damn sight further by mine. Ya fought a demon fer me, pal, even though they weren't none of yer people an’ you were hurtin’ besides.” Caleb set the gift aside and sat up straight, meeting Pyrrhus’ gaze straight on. What kind of stupid question was that, were they friends. “Reckon I treat most everyone as a friend I haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting anyhow. Proud to call you one too.”

“I am glad to hear it. That is… I need friends. We all do. There's too few of us to remain isolated.”

“There's about six thousand miles of desert says otherwise. Stars intervening notwithstanding.” Caleb could tell Pyrrhus was going somewhere with this. But blazes if he couldn’t figure out where.

“Even that can be worked around. But that’s not…” Pyrrhus sipped his tea and started over. “Thank you, Caleb.  Thank you for sharing your time and your knowledge and your desert with me, for treating me like a partner rather than an interloper.”

“Aw, c’mon, man… ‘s no more’n any decent fella ought to do. Guess you’re welcome.” Caleb laughed and shoved his hat back. “But keep on with that an’ yer gonna make me blush an’ then folk’ll get the wrong idea ‘bout you.”

“Did you boys need a moment?”

It wasn’t Caiden who walked in through the swinging doors finally, his Destiny in his hands, but Lysistrata. Caleb had to hold back a laugh at the way Pyrrhus’ spine drew straight and tense at the sight of her. Who reckoned she’d ruffle the fellow’s hackles that way? But then she caught Caleb’s eye with a smile and a wink and a swing of her hips as she walked and oh, right, Lysistrata’s casual brand of promise would never sit well with a man like the Zenith.

“Hello Caleb, Master Lightbringer,” Lys said, sliding onto Caleb’s lap and into the arms he held open for her, since she seemed to expect it of him. Lys was a rule unto herself and he’d learned to just roll with it. Did she do that on purpose, move to give both of them an eyeful of cleavage, or was it just habit? Pyrrhus looked pointedly away and sipped his drink. “I hope you enjoyed your vacation. Had a good male bonding experience?”

“Lys, honey pie, be nice t’the fella.” He passed her his whisky at her commanding gesture; she took it with a smile and a sip before passing it back.

“I am, Caleb-sunshine.” Lysistrata mock pouted a bit, twisting in Caleb’s lap to address Pyrrhus instead. “Shall I leave you here another week, Master Lightbringer, or are you ready to get home? There’s a little boy with far too much energy pestering every adult in sight who could use his daddy back.”

“Home, thank you.” Pyrrhus sipped the last of his tea and slid his chair back. “And thank you again, Caleb. Please, come visit whenever you like.”

“Might be I will, one day.” Caleb grinned and rose when Lysistrata and the Zenith did; the other man went up to retrieve his packs and Caleb followed Lys outside, stowing his new goodies away on his person. The dragon Iyanden lounged in the middle of the packed earth street, his long body coiled halfway round the Silver Dinar. Riven’s inhabitants were conspicuously absent from street and porch fronts alike. “Ain’t that yer friend’s mount? Can’t believe he let you borrow it.”

“No one ‘borrows’ me. I belong to myself,” the dragon rumbled, lifting his head to snort at Caleb. Caleb damn near fell onto his rump stumbling backwards.

“He talks! Hellfires and blazes, woman, y’coulda warned a fella.” Caleb clutched at his chest, full of mock-affront. Lysistrata just laughed at him and as soon as he’d recovered, Caleb bowed politely to the dragon. The dragon bowed back, solemn as a grave.

“Iyanden has very kindly agreed to ferry the Master and I to the gate while Caiden is busy elsewhere.” Lysistrata reached up and patted the dragon’s neck, rubbing at the itchy spot beneath the horns.

“Then you have my thanks, Iyanden.” Pyrrhus had emerged from the tavern with his packs slung over his back. He paused just before the trio. “I suppose I am ready if you are…?”

“Hey man, you take care of yerself now, hear?” Caleb stepped up and dragged Pyrrhus into a full-body bear hug, thumping him hard. “An’ give my regards to your family, too. I’ll see you around.”  

“You too, Caleb.” Pyrrhus smiled and thumped Caleb just as hard in return. “Blessings of the Sun and the Dragons go with you.”

Lysistrata just smiled like a cat with a bowl full of cream from her perch on Iyanden’s back, insufferably smug. Pyrrhus climbed up behind her and Caleb could just hear him murmuring something about they should have a conversation about Lysistrata’s definition of ‘helping’. Caleb laughed to himself, taking several steps back as Iyanden levered himself upright and leapt into the sky. They were gone in moments.

The muted quality of the street lifted and people began streaming back out of shops and houses. In another few heartbeats, the streets were busy again, and it was as if no one had ever been there at all. Caleb wandered over to Dirt and leaned against the hitching post between him and Rain, chewing on his chicle and pretending to take no notice of the fact that his horse had pulled his hat free the first chance.

“Back t’ business as usual now, eh Dirt?” Caleb told his horse. “Fiera’s gonna laugh her veil off at me when I tell ‘er the tale.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's... done. I have been working on this for the better part of a year and I'm honestly really amazed I finished! Yaay! Ok, well... except for the three more scenes I want to put in on the Major Edit Pass... and the really cute epilogue I wanna write.... but /other than that/ it's done! 
> 
> Thanks for coming along with me! I hope you liked it! There'll be more adventures of Caleb and Pyrrhus one day, promise. <3


	21. Epilogue

_ Pyrrhus _

The artifact was glowing softly on its shelf as Pyrrhus ducked into the cool of his study. He shifted his week-old daughter to his other arm, the infant a warm, limp weight against his chest as she slept, and lifted the device from its stand. An Echo of Hesiesh, Akaris called it, made for sending messages across vast distances. It was a palm sized disc of black jade, encased in a sleek alabaster and orichalcum shell with gemstone cabochons studding the lower curve of the frame. It was one of these, a clear stone in the middle, that emitted the low blue light. Pyrrhus thumbed it, the stone depressing and releasing with a muffled click, and the disc of jade fogged over.

Pyrrhus settled down in a comfortable chair to watch and shifted Atarah again, settling her cheek against his chest. She was still asleep, and with luck so was her mother.  When the disc cleared a moment later, instead of Pyrrhus’s reflection a much different image appeared on the polished surface. The familiar face of Caleb appeared in the disc, brow furrowed as he stared at the device. He was either sporting the healing remains of a couple of black eyes or hadn’t slept well; dark circles painted his face.

“Awright,” came the man’s slightly muted voice from the Echo device. “I gave it power an’ pressed the green – it is the green one, right? – the green stone so I hope it’s workin’ proper now.”

“Is the center stone lit? The instructions indicate it should be glowing when it is capturing your image.” Caleb’s gaze flicked up past the device at the other speaker – it was a woman’s voice, more formal than the gunslinger’s and with lilting tones to her speech. Pyrrhus grinned at the face Caleb made in response to the woman’s comment.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s glowin’. So–” the image swung around and away from Caleb’s face, showing the rest of the scene for the first time. The gunslinger sat at a table filled with the debris of a meal and the familiar packaging Pyrrhus had sent the other Echo in, apparently taking up the same back corner of the Silver Dinar where the pair had parted ways a few months before. Caleb’s expression brightened with his usual wide grin as he addressed the Echo.

“Hey, Pyrrhus! Boy, that was a right nice surprise, gettin’ yer package t’day! An’ yer message. Tell yer friend Akaris she’s a reg’lar savant, makin’ sommat like this. It’s bloody amazing. An’ her instructions were real thorough!” Caleb picked up a thick stack of paper and waved it around with his free hand. Akaris was, indeed, very thorough in her instructions on the use of the device. “Feel like I could almost make one m’self.”

Pyrrhus laughed and from out of frame, the woman’s voice scoffed. Caleb leaned over, the view following him, and brought another face into view along his. “An’ look who’s here with me. Pyrrhus, I’d like t’introduce ya to Miz Fiera. I told ya ‘bout her. Fiera, dove, say hello!”

“Greetings, Master Lightbringer.” Fiera was a regal-looking woman, with the dark glossy hair and deep bronze skin common to Southerners, arched brows and striking lion yellow eyes. She wore gold bangles that chimed and clinked as she moved, and layers of brightly colored veils. The hint of a Dawn caste mark glittered briefly beneath the jewelry across her forehead.  “I hope we meet in the flesh some day. Caleb has nothing but praise for you.”

“Shush, gal, yer gonna ruin my reputation.” 

“What reputation?” Fiera lifted a brow at him and the view abruptly changed, leaving Fiera behind. 

“This is what I get fer helpin’ her,” Caleb laughed. He was walking somewhere now, leaving Fiera and the table behind but tossed parting words over his shoulder. “See if I do it again!”

“You cannot stop yourself,  _ vaquero _ !” echoed Fiera’s laughing voice. 

“Can, too! Anyways, Pyr. Thanks fer the message. Your kids are cute as buttons, an’ yer wife is a fox - ya lucky buster, you - but don’ tell her I said that on account of I’m sure she could strike me dead with a look. It’s been pretty quiet lately except for helpin’ Fiera clear out a den o’ evil cultists or somesuch…”

Pyrrhus smiled, listening to Caleb’s familiar ramblings as the gunslinger walked out into the stables. Dirt lipped at the device over Caleb’s shoulder, Rain crowding in to investigate as well. It wasn’t long before Caleb’s hat had gone missing but he kept on talking, telling the device - and Pyrrhus - of what’d been happening the last few months. 

“Papa? Who’re you talking to?” 

His son, white-haired like his mother but tinged with solar gold, hovered in the doorway, holding the toy horse Pyrrhus had brought back from the south for him - a gray, like Rain. Pyrrhus smiled and beckoned Aelius closer and the boy ran over, skidding to a stop at the last moment at his father’s forestalling palm.  “This is my friend Caleb. He’s sent me a message.” 

“Oh.” Aelius listened for a moment, his head tilted as he watched the moving images with a gaze nearly as golden as Fiera's. “He sounds nice. Papa, I’m hungry.” 

“You are always hungry, little sun. Let’s go see if Miz Malada has lunch ready.” Pyrrhus tucked Atarah in closer and stood, letting Aelius lead the way. Caleb’s voice accompanied them all the way into the rest of the villa. 


End file.
